High-Speed Noninvasive Eye-Tracking System

Another important aspect of the design is an advanced control scheme for a charge-coupled device (CCD) image detector. The scheme provides for readout from a small region of interest (ROI), or subwindow, of the full image. Because the ROI contains significantly far fewer pixels than does the full image, one can achieve a high frame rate by reading out the ROI (but not the rest of the image) repeatedly. Inasmuch as the image features of interest (the cornea and pupil) typically occupy a small part of the camera frame, this ROI capability enables determination of the direction of gaze at a high rate. At present, commercial CCD cameras are not well suited to implementation of this scheme, and a custom camera is used instead. This camera, which has an active image area of 658 by 496 pixels, is capable of readout from an 8-by-8-pixel ROI at a rate of 6 kHz.

This work was done by Ashit Talukder, Clayton La Baw, John Michael-Morookian, Steve Monacos, and Orin Serviss of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In accordance with Public Law 96-517, the contractor has elected to retain title to this invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its commercial use should be addressed to: Innovative Technology Assets Management JPL Mail Stop 202-233 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 (818) 354-2240 E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Refer to NPO-30700, volume and number of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the page number.