The new Sweep CMOS monochrome line scan camera from JAI offers an excellent combination of large, high sensitivity pixels and high scan rates for industrial vision inspection. With an outstanding price/performance ratio this is one of the first line scan cameras to utilise the high speed CoaXPress interface.
The new camera offers a 2048 pixel line resolution with scan rates up to 80 kHz. Key to the camera’s performance is JAI’s unique sensor with high sensitivity 20 µm square pixels. Compared to the more traditional 14 µm or 10 um square pixels found in most line scan cameras, these 20 µm pixels collect much more light, giving excellent image quality with better signal to noise. For a given illumination, the Sweep camera can capture an equivalent exposure at double the line rate of a camera having only 14 µm x 14 µm pixels, and 4 times the speed of a camera with 10-micron pixels.
The large pixel size brings a number of significant cost savings on both illumination sources and lenses. Compared to cameras with smaller pixels, the JAI Sweep needs lower intensity, lower cost light sources. In addition, the large pixel size means that the camera can be positioned closer to the object under inspection for the same field of view and using the same lens which further reduces the amount of illumination required as well as reducing the physical size of the vision system.
The Sweep camera is also less dependent on high quality, high resolution lenses to obtain good image quality. Therefore a less costly lens can be chosen without compromising on image quality or even sharper images produced if a high quality lens is used.
The camera also offers great flexibility of operation. A ‘scalable resolution’ feature makes it possible to choose the range of pixels to be used. It can be set as a 2048, 1024 or 512 resolution camera, or any other resolution below 2048 pixels. In addition there are two sensor operation modes available to control the way that light is collected. At high light intensities, the sensor can be run in high dynamic range mode, while at low light levels in can be run in ‘responsive’ mode
The high speed CoaXPress interface offers low cost cables, long cable lengths and a single cable solution to provide image data and camera control as well as power supply.
