Author(s): Mikael Sjodahl; Alexander Karlsson
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: The techniques of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Particle Tracking (PT) have played a central role in the development of experimental fluid mechanics throughout the past four decades. These techniques provide instantaneous velocity fields in two and three dimensions at a resolution limited only by the hardware used. However, PIV/PT are indirect methods that deduce velocities from a sequence of intensity images, a strategy that makes the resulting velocity estimate algorithm dependent and prone to bandwidth capacity. In this presentation we investigate the possibility to perform experimental flow field analysis utilizing neuromorphic techniques. In particular, an event camera has been introduced in an existing PIV set-up. It is concluded that the technique has three main advantages over the use of traditional cameras. (1) The technique registers an event only when the intensity change in a specific pixel is large enough, which reduces the amount of data by orders of magnitude. (2) The space-time resolution is potentially higher because of the single-pixel response, and (3) the technique is inherently suitable to follow streamlines quantitatively. Despite these inherent advantages, the technique is still somewhat immature and has several drawbacks that all fall back on the hardware of the cameras. (i) the noise-level is high, which results in a significant number of false positives that needs to be handled posteriori, (ii) the resolution of the detector is about an order of magnitude lower than a modern digital CMOS detector and (iii) the pixel size is about three times as large as for a normal camera that together with the lower resolution can cause problems for specific applications. The presentation will introduce neuromorphic techniques and our experiences of using an event camera for flow field measurements.
Year: 2026