A Wireless Narrowband Imaging Chip for Capsule Endoscope

Abstract

This paper presents a dual-mode capsule gastrointestinal endoscope device. An endoscope combined with a narrowband image (NBI), has been shown to be a superior diagnostic tool for early stage tissue neoplasms detection. Nevertheless, a wireless capsule endoscope with the narrowband imaging technology has not been presented in the market up to now. The narrowband image acquisition and power dissipation reduction are the main challenges of NBI capsule endoscope. In this paper, we present the first narrowband imaging capsule endoscope that can assist clinical doctors to effectively diagnose early gastrointestinal cancers, profited from our dedicated dual-mode complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. The dedicated dual-mode CMOS sensor can offer white-light and narrowband images. Implementation results show that the proposed 512 × 512 CMOS sensor consumes only 2 mA at a 3-V power supply. The average current of the NBI capsule with an 8-Mb/s RF transmitter is nearly 7 ~ 8 mA that can continuously work for 6 ~ 8 h with two 1.5-V 80-mAh button batteries while the frame rate is 2 fps. Experimental results on backside mucosa of a human tongue and pig's small intestine showed that the wireless NBI capsule endoscope can significantly improve the image quality, compared with a commercial-of-the-shelf capsule endoscope for gastrointestinal tract diagnosis.

Robotics in the Gut

“…A lot of work is being put into the immersion of various imaging techniques into multimodal capsule endoscopes to enhance the quality of GI wall analysis. Ultrasound‐sensing capsules, narrow band imaging capsules, fluorescence imaging capsules, X‐ray‐based imaging capsules, and endomicroscopy capsules are under various stages of development …”

Design of a smart-device and FPGA based wireless capsule endoscopic system

“…However, the transceiver was not interfaced with their prototype for real-time experimentation and such high frame rate will reduce the battery life of the system dramatically. The works in [16,25] are developed in application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) platform that limits programmability and flexibility for future improvements. The capsule size of their works where available is also reported in the table.…”

“…However, the design was not validated using any animal trials. In [16], a narrow band imaging (NBI) image sensor for WCE application is proposed. The work in [29] proposes integrated chip design of WCE components.…”

A Novel Hybrid CMOS Pixel-Cluster for Local Light Angle, Polarization and Intensity Detection with Determination of Stokes Parameters

“…The applications of image sensors in our daily life are greatly varied. Capturing 3D information or depth sensing is essential for many applications including object classification [1][2][3], navigation [4], refocus on complex visual scenes [5], image polarization contrast in biological tissues [6][7][8], improved vision in cloudy conditions [9], face recognition, 3D computer games, and varied viewpoints of the same image. Therefore, improvements in depth sensing and 3D image capture have become an important target in the image sensor field.…”