Scientists Develop AI Camera That Can Shoot Full Color in Total Darkness

Scientists from the University of Irvine have developed a camera system that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with an infrared camera to capture full-color photos even in complete darkness. Human vision perceives light on what is known as the "visible spectrum," wavelengths of light between about 300 and 700 nanometers. Infrared light exists beyond 700 nanometers and is invisible to humans without the help of special technology, and many night vision systems can detect infrared light and transpose it into a digital display that provides humans with a monochromatic view. Scientists endeavored to take that process one step further and combined that infrared data with an AI algorithm that predicts color to render images in the same way they would appear if the light existed in the visible spectrum. Typical night vision systems render scenes as a monochromatic green display, and newer night vision systems use ultrasensitive cameras to detect and amplify visible light. The scientists say that computer vision tasks with low illuminance imaging have employed image enhancement and deep learning to aid in object detection and characterization from the infrared spectrum, but not with accurate interpretation of the same scene in the visible spectrum.