Robust Automatic Focus Algorithm for Low Contrast Images Using a New Contrast Measure 英文参考文献.docVIP

Sensors 2011, 11, 8281-8294; doi:10.3390/s110908281 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Robust Automatic Focus Algorithm for Low Contrast Images Using a New Contrast Measure Xin Xu 1,2, Yinglin Wang 1, Jinshan Tang 2,*, Xiaolong Zhang 2 and Xiaoming Liu 2 1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, NO. 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China; E-Mails: xuxin0336@ (X.X.); wang-yl@ (Y.W.) 2 School of Computer Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, NO. 947 Heping Road, Wuhan 430081, Hubei, China; E-Mail: xiaolong.zhang@ (X.Z.); liuxiaoming@ (X.L.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: dadaotang@; Tel.: +86-21-3420-5978; Fax: +86-21-3420-4486. Received: 1 August 2011; in revised form: 23 August 2011 / Accepted: 24 August 2011 / Published: 25 August 2011 Abstract: Low contrast images, suffering from a lack of sharpness, are easily influenced by noise. As a result, many local false peaks may be generated in contrast measurements, making it difficult for the camera’s passive auto-focus system to perform its function of locating the focused peak. In this paper, a new passive auto-focus algorithm is proposed to address this problem. First, a noise reduction preprocessing is introduced to make our algorithm robust to both additive noise and multiplicative noise. Then, a new contrast measure is presented to bring in local false peaks, ensuring the presence of a well defined focused peak. In order to gauge the performance of our algorithm, a modified peak search algorithm is used in the experiments. The experimental results from an actual digital camera validate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm. Keywords: auto-focus; low contrast; contrast measure; noise reduction 1. Introduction With the rapid development of digital image processing techniques, the design of a consumer-level digital came