Event-based Imaging Velocimetry -- An Assessment of Event-based Cameras for the Measurement of Fluid Flows

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of event-based vision sensors for fluid flow measurement, proposing new algorithms for velocity estimation and particle tracking that leverage asynchronous intensity change signals.

Contribution

It introduces event-based imaging velocimetry (EBIV) for fluid flows, with novel algorithms for motion detection and particle tracking using event data.

Findings

Effective particle velocity estimation using event data

Successful demonstration on water and air flows

Potential for high-resolution, real-time flow measurement

Abstract

Contrary to conventional frame-based imaging, event-based vision (EBV) or dynamic vision sensing (DVS) asynchronously records binary signals of intensity changes for given pixels with microsecond resolution. The present work explores the possibilities of harnessing the potentials of event-based vision for fluid flow measurement. The described implementations of event-based imaging velocimetry (EBIV) rely on the imaging small particles that are illuminated by a laser light sheet which is similar to classical two-dimensional, two-component (2d-2c) PIV with the difference that a continuously operating laser-light sheet is used without modulation of the laser or camera. The moving particles generate continuous time-stamped events on the detector that are later used to infer their velocity using patch-wise processing schemes. Two flow estimation algorithms are proposed; one uses a "motion compensation" that maximizes the local contrast, the other is based on a sum-of-correlations approach. The underlying motion detection schemes along with the complete absence of background signal allows straightforward retrieval of the events associated with individual particles thereby allowing the reconstruction of individual particle tracks. Alternatively, the event data can be processed with conventional PIV algorithms using images reconstructed from the event data stream. The concepts are demonstrated on simple flows in water and air.