https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230503121252.htm

"Our technique is based on a single-pixel detector, which enables efficient and robust multi-object detection directly from a small number of 2D measurements," said research team leader Liheng Bian from the Beijing Institute of Technology in China. "This type of image-free sensing technology is expected to solve the problems of heavy communication load, high computing overhead and low perception rate of existing visual perception systems."

Today's image-free perception methods can only achieve classification, single object recognition or tracking. To accomplish all three at once, the researchers developed a technique known as image-free single-pixel object detection (SPOD). In the Optica Publishing Group journal Optics Letters, they report that SPOD can achieve an object detection accuracy of just over 80%.