Patent Document ID: 8648287
Application ID: 11442458
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An imaging system comprising: an imaging array comprising a plurality of binary pixels, each binary pixel responding to photons in a first wavelength band that impinge substantially only upon an area on the imaging array smaller than a 3.7 μm airy disk diameter, each binary pixel configured for controllable reset and selective readout, and configured to provide, upon readout, a single-bit binary sample indicative of whether at least a threshold number of charge carriers have been collected by that binary pixel since that binary pixel was last reset; and a readout circuit in electrical communication with the imaging array and configured to facilitate the formation of an image having a plurality of multilevel digital samples corresponding to the first wavelength band by operating the reset and readout of the binary pixels to produce, for use in formation of the image, at least forty binary samples corresponding to each of the multilevel digital samples and all read out from an area on the imaging array smaller than the 3.7 μm air disk diameter, the forty binary samples corresponding to each of the multilevel digital samples comprising a plurality of temporal samplings of one or more of the binary pixels.