Leuven, Belgium / Stuttgart, Germany, 30 October 2012 – Xenics, Europe’s leading developer and manufacturer of advanced infrared detectors that cover the LWIR to the visible realm, demonstrates Bobcat-640, its ultra-compact, lownoise, low-dark-current camera equipped for GigE Vision or CameraLink. Bobcat-640 is the smallest SWIR camera with InGaAs detector for machine vision and high temperature process control, as well as science and R&D featuring a GigE Vision or CameraLink interface for easy system integration and fast data transfer. Xenics exhibits in Booth 1D82/ Hall 1.
With its compact form factor of just 55 x 55 x 67 mm³ for the CameraLink version and 55 x 55 x 85 mm³ for a small GigE Vision interface, Bobcat-640 is the world’s smallest industrial SWIR GigE/CL camera offering an excellent lownoise and low-dark-current performance. The use of industrial components increases the operating temperature range from -400C up to 700C. Power over Ethernet is possible for standalone operation.
In terms of resolution, Bobcat-640 drives pixel pitch down to 20μm from conventional levels of 25μm, at a high overall resolution of 640×512 pixels. This efficient optical lay-out makes the new camera compatible with a broad range of exchangeable standard C-mount lenses as well as the full range of other lower-cost lenses.
With on-board image processing Bobcat-640 operates as a complete IR camera system. Image quality is optimized with on-board signal processing with 14- bit A-to-D conversion. It is configurable with single non-uniformity correction (NUC), or multiple NUC in Xeneth software. Auto gain, span control as well as trigger in/out are also provided on-board.
The Bobcat-640 spectral response covers 0.9 to 1.7μm, with a VisNIR option available that extends the wavelength realm to the visible (0.5μm). The inhouse developed InGaAs detector is build around Xenics’ CTIA-based Read- Out Integrated circuit (ROIC) operating in high gain or low gain mode. The user can choose to Integrate While Read or to Integrate Then Read. As a result, Bobcat-640 substantially increases measurement sensitivity by capturing more light and lowering integration times under difficult lighting conditions. With the TE-1 cooled temperature stabilization, Bobcat-640 realizes noise levels of 90e and low dark current of 1.1.106 e-/s. The high frame rates of up to 100Hz can be further increased in windowing mode.
Bobcat-640-GigE and -CL are available now, CoaXPress will follow later in 2013. Also, the Bobcat-640 GigE will be shortly available with certification for MVTec, Cognex and Stemmer vision software compatibility. It is compliant with any software that supports GenICam.
As the sole European manufacturer of advanced InGaAs products, Xenics offers system integrators worldwide an open architecture with control and command of multiple interfaces via GigE Vision and CameraLink.
