Fastcom introduces world's first intelligent CMOS vision system with Camera Link interface

Citation

(2002), "Fastcom introduces world's first intelligent CMOS vision system with Camera Link interface", Sensor Review, Vol. 22 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2002.08722cad.006

Fastcom introduces world's first intelligent CMOS vision system with Camera Link interface

Fastcom introduces world's first intelligent CMOS vision system with Camera Link interfaceKeywords: Cameras, CMOS, Machine vision

Fastcom Technology SA, has introduced the iMVS-157, the world's first intelligent CMOS vision system with a high-speed Camera Link interface designed specifically for high-speed machine vision applications (Plate 6). The iMVS-157 is the latest in Fastcom's extensive line of vision systems with intelligent Random Pixel Access and represents the industry's first intelligent CMOS vision system combining extremely fast acquisition time, powerful embedded intelligence and high-speed standard Camera Link interface.

"Many customers who already use the fully stand-alone version of the iMVS series for high-speed inspection and tracking applications want to add fast-transmission of significant areas of interest (AOI) and data to their PC in order to perform additional complex and heavy processing tasks" said Kees de Louw, VP of Sales. "For example, a major system integrator for very high-speed sorting applications wanted to acquire and process various AOI dynamically moving in the field of view to identify and verify various marks on a product, and transfer to the PC only the multiple AOI in order to perform pattern matching with more than 150 different patterns in his database. Leveraging our years of experience in intelligent CMOS Random Pixel Access, we have developed a powerful solution that meets and even exceeds these requirements, allowing the machine throughput to be doubled by acquiring, processing and transferring to the PC only the relevant AOI. Moreover, the iMVS-157 now makes it possible to have high-speed and high-resolution imaging without the high cost!"

Plate 6

The new iMVS-157 features a powerful CMOS image sensor of 1,024 1,024 randomly addressable pixels at a pixel-rate of 10Mhz, combined with a 32-bit floating point Analog Devices DSP. Together with the Camera Link interface, the iMVS-157 is able to capture and process single or multiple AOI in the scene – even arbitrarily sized and located – and transfer them to the PC using the most popular Camera Link frame grabbers. Depending on the size of the captured AOI, the iMVS-157 achieves an ultra-fast measurement rate, e.g. up to 1,220 measurements per second for one AOI of 128 x 64 pixels or up to 4,900 measurements per second for four AOI of 1 x 512 pixels each. By acquiring the relevant visual information only, the iMVS-157 boosts the conventional image capturing time, which allows the vision system to be used in even the fastest manufacturing lines.

Roughly the size of a standard machine vision camera, the iMVS-157 combines all image acquisition and processing hardware, SRAM and flash memories, embedded software and communication interfaces in an industrial package. The Camera Link connectivity allows users to simply interface the iMVS-157 with standard acquisition boards, and opens the unique Random Pixel Access feature to the world of PCs through the user's favourite standard vision software. Additionally, the iMVS-157 features eight digital I/O, RS-232 and RS-485 serial communication for easy integration with equipment on the factory floor.

The iMVS-157 is fully programmable using the iMVS-IDE development tools and libraries also available at Fastcom. The iMVS-IDE – Integrated Development Environment – is designed to easily program the iMVS-157 embedded software and allows the user infinite application possibilities by developing custom software in C.

A number of peripheral accessories are offered, including cables, remote control, power supply and specific mounting heads.

The iMVS-157 intelligent Machine Vision System and iMVS-IDE software are currently available from Fastcom.

For further information contact: Jean-Luc Laager, Product Manager, Process Automation, Fastcom Technology SA, Boulevard de Grancy 19 A, CH-1006 Lausanne, Switzerland. Tel: +41 21 619 06 70; Fax: +41 21 619 06 71; E-mail: laager@fastcom-technology.com