Abstract: Single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) are novel image sensors that record photons at extremely high sensitivity. To reduce both the required sensor area for readout circuits and the data throughput for SPAD array, in this paper, we propose a snapshot compressive sensing single-photon avalanche diode (CS-SPAD) sensor which can realize on-chip snapshot-type spatial compressive imaging in a compact form. Taking advantage of the digital counting nature of SPAD sensing, we propose to design the circuit connection between the sensing unit and the readout electronics for compressive sensing. To process the compressively sensed data, we propose a convolution neural-network-based algorithm dubbed CSSPAD-Net which could realize both high-fidelity scene reconstruction and classification. To demonstrate our method, we design and fabricate a CS-SPAD sensor chip, build a prototype imaging system, and demonstrate the proposed on-chip snapshot compressive sensing method on the MINIST dataset and real handwritten digital images, with both qualitative and quantitative results. Keywords: single-photon avalanche diode; compressed sensing; efficient scene perception

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Qiu, C.; Wang, P.; Kong, X.; Yan, F.; Mao, C.; Yue, T.; Hu, X. On-Chip Compressive Sensing with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array. Sensors 2023, 23, 4417. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094417

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Qiu C, Wang P, Kong X, Yan F, Mao C, Yue T, Hu X. On-Chip Compressive Sensing with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array. Sensors. 2023; 23(9):4417. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094417

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Qiu, Chenxi, Peng Wang, Xiangshun Kong, Feng Yan, Cheng Mao, Tao Yue, and Xuemei Hu. 2023. "On-Chip Compressive Sensing with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array" Sensors 23, no. 9: 4417. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094417

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Qiu C, Wang P, Kong X, Yan F, Mao C, Yue T, Hu X. On-Chip Compressive Sensing with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array. Sensors. 2023; 23(9):4417. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094417

Qiu, C.; Wang, P.; Kong, X.; Yan, F.; Mao, C.; Yue, T.; Hu, X. On-Chip Compressive Sensing with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array. Sensors 2023, 23, 4417. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094417

Qiu, Chenxi, Peng Wang, Xiangshun Kong, Feng Yan, Cheng Mao, Tao Yue, and Xuemei Hu. 2023. "On-Chip Compressive Sensing with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array" Sensors 23, no. 9: 4417. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094417