Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision

Bridgelux and Molex have introduced what they claim is the first LED lighting solution designed and priced to drive rapid, mass market adoption of LED lighting technology. At a volume price point at less than US$20 per unit, and a lifespan of more than 10 years, the partners claim the Helieon Sustainable Light Module is one of the industry's highest quality, most cost-effective solid state lighting solutions, and it will change the way LED lighting solutions are used.

Traficon has announced its first automatic incident detection (AID) board for analysing images coming from network cameras. The new multi-functional Video Image Processor for traffic control (VIP-IP) has been developed to respond to the upcoming trend towards IP cameras, and is being launched at the same time as Flux, a new video detection management system.

Iteris has launched Pico, a compact video detection system that delivers superior vehicle detection in a small and economical package. Designed to address international video detection needs, the system includes a weather resistant camera sensor with a built-in vehicle detection processor and an interface controller that resides in the traffic cabinet. Designed for easy installation and configuration, Iteris says the device can be mounted at low heights with no need for special poles or mounting apparatus.

Fujinon has introduced two newly developed, 2/3" sensor size 5 Megapixel lenses for day/night applications: the HF35SR4A-1/SA1, with a focal length of f=35mm and F2, and the HF50SR4A-1/SA1, offering f=50mm and F2.8. Iris control can be either manual or automatic, by DC signal. Due to the combination of high resolution and IR correction, the company says these lenses are ideally suited for CCTV and security as well as for traffic applications, such as automatic number plate recognition.

A new camera range from Stemmer Imaging uses a sensor, based on solar cell technology, to allow imaging from scenes which simultaneously contain both very light and very dark areas. The company says this makes them ideally suited to use in environments with a very high dynamic range, or where there are strong and unpredictable brightness fluctuations. The new FX4 HDR (High Dynamic Range) sensor produces a logarithmic signal output. This enables fine differences in brightness to be imaged even in very bright

The Prosilica GX-Series from Allied Vision Technologies (AVT) is available with five sensors from 1-8 megapixels and a new thermal management housing. This range of Gigabit Ethernet cameras combines high speed and high resolution. Running at 240Mb/s data rate, the company claims the GX-Series are the fastest GigE Vision-compliant cameras in the world. They are equipped with the latest Kodak CCD sensors to offer excellent image quality and high sensitivity. All models feature the specially designed new therm

David Crawford investigates progress in a key safety area - work zones. Highway construction zone safety is taken seriously enough in the US to merit a special spring National Work Zone Awareness Week, which in 2010 ran from 19-23 April. Headed by the US Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), this aims to reduce an annual toll of work zone deaths - 720 in 2008 (an average of one every 10 hours) with more than 40,000 traffic injuries (an average of one every 13 minutes).