Bedabrata Pain, a man of technical genius who worked in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) representing India and now he became the inventor of active pixel sensor technology (CMOS image sensor) in modern digital Video camera. He was popular I India after he directed a film made on this technology named "Chittagong".
Bedabrata Pain is now an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter. He began his education in Kolkata as his parents came to Kolkata from Fardipur. He was educated in St. Lawrence High School in Kolkata and later in South Point High School. After that, he was graduated in Electronics & Electrical Comm. Engineering from in IIT Kharagpur. He was the student of 1982-1986 batches. After that, he got an Ivy League scholarship for further studies. Later he went to Columbia University, New York and received his M.S and Ph.D Degree in Applied physics in the year 1992.
Bedabrata Pain joined with Jet Propulsion Laboratory in National Aeronautics and Space Administration, California Institute of Technology in the year 1993. There he managed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory`s (JPL) image sensor and focal-plane technology research and advanced development. From 1993, he was associated with NASA. Parallel with his work in NASA, he taught courses on Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) imaging at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He also chaired many International conferences, and was the invited speaker at several conferences. He has published over 150 technical papers, and won several awards, including the Lew-Allen Award for Inventors.
In 1990s, Bedabrata Pain along with his four friends invented the active pixel sensor technology that produced the world`s smallest camera and has been inducted to the US Space Technology Hall of Fame. An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor consisting of an integrated circuit. It is containing a collection of pixel sensors. Each pixel is containing a photo - detector and an active amplifier. There are many types of active pixel sensors. These include the CMOS APS. This is used most commonly in cell phone cameras, web cameras and in some DSLR Camera. A CMOS process produces such an image sensor. Thus, it emerged as an alternative to Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) image sensors.
Bedabrata Pain had worked for NASA for 15 years as senior research scientist before quitting NASA in December 2008. He has his credit in inventing many-advanced technical process in image sensor.
Bedabrata was the executive producer of the award-winning film Amu in the year 2005. He was the principal researcher for the documentary called "Lifting the Veil" on the impact of globalization in India, He was the writer of the book titled `Behind the Events in Kashmir`. He directed critically acclaimed film "Chittagong" starring Manoj Bajpai, Vega Tamotia, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Barry John and Dibyendu Bhattacharya. Bedabrata, shot the film `Chittagong` with the same digital imaging technology that he with other NASA scientists had invented. This was popularly known as RED Camera (World Smallest Camera) with the active pixel sensor. His experiment has contributed largely on Indian Films.
Bedabrata Pain is married to Shonali Bose who did her Masters Degree in Political Science from Columbia University. Now he is based in Los Angeles. Bedabrata and Shonali have lost their son Ishan, who died at a young age in an accident before the release of the film "Chittagong".