New FireWire accelerates machine vision cameras

A Sony Europe - Image Sensing Solutions product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Feb 3, 2005

Sony Europe's Image Sensing Solutions division, a pioneer of the IEEE1394 standard, has introduced one of the industry's first IEEE1394b cameras.

Sony Europe's Image Sensing Solutions division, a pioneer of the IEEE1394 standard, has introduced one of the industry's first IEEE1394b cameras.

The XCD-V50 camera is the first commodity product to bring the benefits of the IEEE1394b standard to the machine vision market.

The camera combines the higher datarate of the IEEE1394b standard, with extremely low power and small size.

It is ideally suited to very high-speed machine vision applications or users wishing to make the transition from analogue to digital solutions.

The XCD-V50 video camera incorporates a monochrome third-inch-type interline transfer (IT) CCD sensor based on Sony's HAD technology, providing VGA resolution.

The camera provides superior quality images via a 14bit output delivering up to 16K levels of grey per pixel.

It provides images in full resolution (VGA) at 60frame/s via an 800Mbit/s link, twice the bandwidth of existing IEEE1394a systems, allowing the system run at higher resolutions and/or handle more cameras.

The XCD-V50 is the smallest IEEE1394b camera available, measuring only 57.5 x 44 x 29mm at just 120g and offers a low power usage of less than 2.5W, making them ideal for use in space restricted areas.

The C-mount cameras are easy to install and are the first IEEE1394b cameras to offer daisychaining capability.

The XCD-V50 supports two new screw connectors for the cabling which offers more robust performance over standard cables.

The high performance and daisy-chaining capabilities of the XCD-V50 makes it ideally suited to high-speed and network shooting applications such as production line monitoring and traffic control.

Specific applications could include robot guidance, automotive monitoring and production inspection in cosmetics, medical and food/beverage manufacturing.

Sony is expected to lead the way as it did with IEEE1394 version "a" cameras for the machine vision market.

Sony expects that the adoption of the new revision of the standard is likely to ensure that IEEE1394 will remain the solution of choice for industrial vision applications.

It will allow Sony, which pioneered the use of IEEE1394 in industrial image sensing products, to bring new levels of functionality and performance to its customers.

The move to digital cameras brings machine vision users improved resolution, frame rates, bandwidth, picture quality and noise immunity.

Sony believes that this transition is the most important development that has occurred in the industrial camera market over recent years.

That's why it now offers an outstanding choice of innovative digital cameras and networking technologies, including the XCD-V50.

The XCD-V50 will be available from April 2005 in mass production quantities.