A camera that can see unlike any imager before it

Now envision a million of these pixels-a megapixel's worth-in an array that covers a thumbnail. Take one more mental trip: dive down onto the surface of the semiconductor hosting all of these pixels and marvel at each pixel's associated tech-mesh of more than 1,000 integrated transistors, which provide each and every pixel with a tiny reprogrammable brain of its own. That is the vision for DARPA's new Reconfigurable Imaging (ReImagine) program. "What we are aiming for," said Jay Lewis, program manager for ReImagine, "is a single, multi-talented camera sensor that can detect visual scenes as familiar still and video imagers do, but that also can adapt and change their personality and effectively morph into the type of imager that provides the most useful information for a given situation." This could mean selecting between different thermal (infrared) emissions or different resolutions or frame rates, or even collecting 3-D LIDAR data for mapping and other jobs that increase situational awareness.