Smart cameras incorporating an image sensor, FPGA, CPU, and I/O capability into a single unit offer systems integrators and end users a viable alternative to host-based vision systems.
In industrial process monitoring where space constraints are limited, wrote Andy Wilson, Contributing Editor, in a September 2017 article, the use of numerous cameras interfaced to PC-based machine vision systems may not be viable. In such cases, the use of smart cameras that incorporate the features of both cameras and PCs provide systems integrators with the option of localized pass/fail decision making, I/O part rejection and networked management capability while reducing the footprint of their systems.
Over the past ten years, the demand for smart cameras has steadily grown in machine vision applications. Here are six recent examples of smart cameras being deployed in machine vision, beginning with the article Andy wrote on smart cameras in industrial applications, and ending with an application in which a smart camera is used for quality inspection of English muffins.
