Single Pixel Camera developed by Rice University

• Call it impossible or just plain craziness, researchers at Rice University recently developed a prototype digital camera that can deliver high quality images with just a single pixel.
• As an alternative to traditional CCD or CMOS sensor designs, the single pixel camera uses a micromirror array and a process of compressive sensing.
• Unlike standard digital cameras that use megapixels - millions of sensing detectors - the compressive sensing camera uses only one detector to sample light, and then it is combined with post-capture computations to reconstruct the image. The prototype was developed by Rice University's Electrical and Computer Engineering assistant professor Dr. Kevin Kelly and professor Dr. Richard Baraniuk. The prototype consists of two off-the-shelf lenses, a photodiode, and a micromirror array worth hundreds of dollars made by Texas Instruments, the official sponsor of the project.
  
• The single pixel camera combines recent mathematics developed in the last few years with hardware construction available since January 2005. At the heart of this single pixel camera is the Texas Instruments-manufactured digital micromirror device (DMD),that replaces a traditional CCD array.

Source : http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com