Compact camera offers best of both worlds

A Goodrich Optical and Space Systems product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Oct 13, 2004

The Visible-InGaAs MiniCamera is billed as the world's smallest dual wavelength range camera that simultaneously images in the visible and short-wave infra-red spectrum.

The Visible-InGaAs MiniCamera is billed as the world's smallest dual wavelength range camera that simultaneously images in the visible and short-wave infra-red spectrum.

The Visible-InGaAs SU320Mvis 1.7RT MiniCamera is built around Sensors Unlimited's proprietary InGaAs focal plane arrays that feature an expanded wavelength range and higher sensitivity than has ever been available.

The array is built in the minicamera platform which weighs less than 300g without the lens.

The tiny camera features a 320 x 240 pixel array with a 40 micron pitch.

The versatile, all solid-state InGaAs sensor requires no cooling and has no moving parts.

With factory-set nonuniformity corrections (NUCs) and built-in antiblooming, the camera never needs field adjustments.

It simultaneously delivers a 12bit digital RS422 digital output and EIA-170 analogue video output for display on commercial TV monitors.

The dual sensor's quantum efficiency is greater than 70% from 1000-1600nm, greater than 50% at 800nm and greater than 10% at 400nm.

Currently in use by the US Department of Defense, the robust camera exceeds the original specifications.

According to Dr Martin Ettenberg, SUI's Director of Imaging Products: "We have created a breakthrough, dual-spectrum camera that is compact and as easy to use as a home camcorder".

He continues: " InGaAs is proving to be the ideal enabling technology for lighter, smaller, smarter and more cost effective short-wave infra-red and now dual-spectrum visible and SWIR imaging".

Applications include industrial machine vision, hyperspectral imaging and laser beam profiling.

Military use includes imaging of all military laser designators, even those invisible to the human eye.

With the simultaneous dual wavelength capabilities, the Visible-InGaAs MiniCamera expands current night vision technology and can perform many other jobs that formerly required two separate cameras.