LIGHT SOURCE POSITION DETECTION APPARATUS, LIGHT SOURCE TRACKING APPARATUS, CONTROL METHOD AND PROGRAM

摘要

A light source position detection apparatus (10) has a condensing lens (32) that condenses light emitted from the sun, an image pickup device (33) that receives the light condensed by the condensing lens (32), and a CPU (21) that detects the position of the sun based on per-pixel light reception information received by the image pickup device (33), and the CPU (21) changes the shutter speed of the image pickup device (33) and adjusts the quantity of the light received by the image pickup device in response to the quantity of light emitted from the sun. The light source position detection apparatus (10) can detect the position of a light source with high accuracy, and can detect the position of the light source with high accuracy even when the light source is hidden behind clouds, for example.

主权项

1. A light source position detection apparatus, comprising:
a condensing section that condenses light emitted from a light source to be detected; an image pickup device that receives the light condensed by the condensing section; infrared light image forming means for forming an image of infrared light that passes through clouds on the image pickup device, out of light emitted from the light source to be detected without forming any image of visible light on the image pickup device; and a control section, wherein the control section performs: a first acquisition process of acquiring per-pixel brightness information from the image pickup device; a process of changing a shutter speed based on the brightness information acquired in the first acquisition process and adjusting the quantity of light received by the image pickup device; a second acquisition process of acquiring per-pixel brightness information from the image pickup device, the shutter speed of which is changed; a process of rounding down brightness information equal to or less than a threshold set to a value greater than brightness caused by light scattered by clouds out of the brightness information acquired in the second acquisition process; and a process of detecting the position of the light source to be detected based on brightness information after the rounding down process.