Patent ID: 8562515

Claim:
A capsule endoscope for endoscopic imaging by passing a gastrointestinal tract in a body, comprising: plural image pickup units for image pickup inside said gastrointestinal tract; a controller for determining a number of frames of imaging per unit time for respectively said plural image pickup units according to position relationship information of a position relationship of said image pickup units to a target region in said gastrointestinal tract, to control said plural image pickup units, wherein said number of said frames is set greater for a first image pickup unit than for a second image pickup unit which is located farther from said target region than said first image pickup unit among said image pickup units when said capsule endoscope approaches said target region, and wherein said number of said frames is set greater for said second image pickup unit than for said first image pickup unit when said capsule endoscope leaves said target region, wherein said number of said frames is determined according to a frame number ratio of frame numbers and a total frame number of frames optimized previously in consideration of said position relationship information, and wherein said frame number ratio of frame numbers optimized previously and said total frame number of frames optimized previously have at least three values respectively.