New CMOS 1.4MP camera spearheads its rivals at 100fps

Dalsa Falcon 1.4M100 CMOS camera

The New Falcon 1.4M100 CMOS camera delivers 1.4 MegaPixel resolution at a blistering high speed of 100fps. Its compact-cubic body is value-packed with quality features such as vertical windowing, flat-field correction, true global shutter, exposure control and much more. The 1.4M100 is impressive for its high resolution, high speed frame rate, small size, light weight, excellent power-efficiency and its aggressive pricing.

Dalsa is one of the very few camera manufacturers that design and build their own sensors in their own sensor foundry. Their patented CMOS sensor design delivers global shuttering, global reset with concurrent integration and readout and so offer crisp, clear images without artifacts.

The Falcon 1.4M100 High Speed camera produces monochrome images with a 1400x1024 pixel resolution. It offers this at high speed while also offering high sensitivity with its large square 7.4um x 7.4um pixels.

Many if not most high resolution CMOS sensors currently on the market only offer rolling shutter which is unsuitable for moving objects. The Falcon 1.4M100 features a global shutter which allows it to snap images of fast moving objects without motion blur. It achieves this with a global reset and also features the ability to simultaneously reset the sensor and begin integration of the next image while reading out the previous image. This also is very uncommon in other CMOS cameras on the market today.

The high speed frame rate of the Falcon 1.4M100 requires a fast connection and so it has been designed with a Mini Camera link output. The 1.4M100 High Speed camera pixel clock runs at a data rate of 80MHz and with mini Camera Link provides connectivity at up to 10 meters distance. Mini Camera Link is a smaller form of the industry standard CameraLink connection and has become a standard of its own. Mini Cameralink is Power Over CL (PoCL) capable. The camera's PoCL feature comes as a single one-connector solution eliminating the need for a second power cable. Reducing the space required for the Camera Link connection has allowed Dalsa to offer the camera in a compact cubic-shaped 44x44x44mm body with a weight of less than 175g, suitable for robotic and pick/place applications. It uses less than 4W of power and so is also suited to remote applications where mains power is unavailable.

The Dalsa Falcon 1.4M100 High Speed camera is built smart. Its vertical windowing feature allows users to trade-off vertical resolution for increased speeds. Reducing the camera's resolution to VGA for example increases the frame rate to 216fps. The 1.4M100 offers Gain and Offset adjustment as well as pixel by pixel Flat Field Correction (FFC). FFC allows the camera to be calibrated to minimise Fixed Pattern Noise, adjust for Photo Response Non-Uniformity and to adjust for any lighting variations that may occur over the field of view or to correct for lens vignetting. The resultant image is low noise, high fidelity and really is unsurpassed.

Dalsa's Falcon 1.4M100 high speed camera competes directly with cameras fitted with sensors such as Kodak's KAI-1020M and Sony's ICX285AL sensor. The Falcon 1.4M100 is offered at lower prices whilst performing up to 4 times faster in a more compact body.

The 1.4M100 is suitable to many application markets. It is used by electronic manufacturers for automated optical inspection of printed circuit boards where high speed, light weight, single cable and low cost are important. It is used by Intelligent Traffic OEMs where high speeds, high dynamic range, high sensitivity and true global shutter are critical to their success. It is also used in robotics because of its high speed, highquality, low weight and low cost. It can be used in any application where superior speed, resolution and image quality are required.

Adept Electronic Solutions is the machine vision and imaging specialist providing expert advice and timely support. To find out more about the Dalsa 1.4M100 CMOS camera or any model from Dalsa's range of cameras please contact us or call us at in Perth (08) 92425411 / Sydney (02) 99792599 / Melbourne (03) 95555621