▷ FIXING ZOOM AND FOCUS POSITION

The problem posed by impacts isn’t just damage to the camera – shattering of a lens, destruction of components, removal of power supply / output… – but principally the failures they create. Typically, they will cause the camera to defocus, with the zoom position moving internally and making images unusable if not restarted.

But not only direct impacts on the camera will affect the performance and quality of the image or even the complete loss of images.

Vibrations or indirect impacts, like those on the housing of machine vision camera or on the overall structure hosting the imaging system (sports or rescue vehicles, construction machines, tanks and armored terrestrial systems, drones or helicopters, etc,…) might lead to defocused images and the loss of communication with the camera. In this event the artificial vision camera has to be manually rest or completely restarted.

During that time the system is blind, so is the operator or driver.

The solution to overcome the problem of the vibrations and shocks is a machine vision camera with rugged focus and zoom: the HarshCam.

▷ A bespoke hardware adaptation to Sony FCB modules

As of today the best-in-class machine vision color zoom cameras in the market have proven to be Sony Blocks but they face the same vibration or impact issues than the rest of the cameras.

The HarshCam uses a bespoke hardware adaptation to Sony FCB modules. The modifications are solely internal and completely transparent to the integrator and the user. The connectivity and the control software are therefore the same than those of the original Sony FCB block.

Similarly the external footprint and dimensions of the Sony Block are not affected by the improvements of the HarshCam. Thanks to this a HarshCam can replace a standard Sony FCB camera module without further workarounds: simply exchange one unit for the other and power on.