  The applications of automotive cameras in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems
(ADAS) are growing rapidly as automotive manufacturers strive to provide 360
degree protection for their customers. Vision systems must capture high quality
images in both daytime and night-time scenarios in order to produce the large
informational content required for software analysis in applications such as
lane departure, pedestrian detection and collision detection. The challenge in
producing high quality images in low light scenarios is that the signal to
noise ratio is greatly reduced. This can result in noise becoming the dominant
factor in a captured image thereby making these safety systems less effective
at night. This paper outlines a systematic method for characterisation of state
of the art image sensor performance in response to noise, so as to improve the
design and performance of automotive cameras in low light scenarios. The
experiment outlined in this paper demonstrates how this method can be used to
characterise the performance of CMOS image sensors in response to electrical
noise on the power supply lines.
