Patent ID: 7643055

Claim:
A camera system, comprising: a low-resolution camera; a plurality of high-resolution cameras, the low-resolution camera and plurality of high-resolution cameras sharing a common image sensor, a plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor being associated with the low-resolution camera, the low resolution camera having a lower resolution than each of the high resolution cameras such that each high-resolution camera includes a respectively different image sensing region of the plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor; and wherein the low-resolution camera is configured to: (1) detect motion of an object across fields of view of a series of image sensing regions based on sensed images, (2) identify a composite region encompassing a plurality of image sensing regions associated with the detected motion of the object (3) power on individual ones of the high-resolution cameras corresponding to the composite region, and (4) power off each of the individual ones of the powered on high-resolution cameras after the object is not within the field of view of a respective image sensing region.