National Instruments announced the launch of seven new smart camera products offering color and high-resolution options. The new NI 177x smart cameras feature a 1.6 GHz Intel® Atom™ processor to enhance image processing performance and an IP67 rating, adding dust and water resistance. With their rugged construction, they are suitable for industrial inspection applications requiring high performance. Additionally, these cameras are equipped with a real-time operating system, providing the stability and determinism required in manufacturing facilities.

The new cameras equipped with Intel Atom processors offer processing speeds four times faster than existing NI Smart Cameras. Additionally, these products feature new sensor options, including 5-megapixel (monochrome), as well as VGA, 1.3 megapixels (color), and 2 megapixels (monochrome). These new sensor options enable the implementation of applications requiring high-resolution image acquisition, such as metrology, color image processing for minor defects, and LED verification in electronic devices. Furthermore, the NI 177x Smart Cameras feature a rugged housing, M12 connector, and lens cover, earning them IP67 certification and excellent protection against dust and water. These new cameras are the first IP67-rated products offered by National Instruments.

The camera includes four digital input lines and four digital output lines and supports various industrial communication protocols, including RS232 and Ethernet (TCP/IP, Ethernet/IP Modbus TCP). Signals generated from this network can be used to dynamically control lighting or cameras, synchronize with conveyor belts, drive mechanisms for sorting parts, or integrate smart cameras with PLCs. This camera also includes a VGA video output connection for monitoring inspection images.

Eric Starkloff, Vice President of Product Marketing at National Instruments, said, “National Instruments is thrilled to launch a new high-performance camera with a robust configuration. Beyond its outstanding hardware performance, what sets NI Smart Cameras apart from other industrial cameras is NI’s software. Because NI’s vision software works with all types of hardware used in manufacturing facilities, it enables a single-platform approach that reduces maintenance and development costs.”

NI 177x smart cameras come with NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection (AI) 2011 software, an interactive environment for setting up, benchmarking, and deploying vision systems. Engineers can use this software to configure the camera, build user interfaces, acquire images, trigger and set up lighting, perform image processing steps, and communicate results via I/O or industrial communication networks. In addition, these cameras can be programmed using NI LabVIEW, a graphical programming environment, and advanced customization and integration with other National Instruments hardware are possible using the NI Vision Development Module.

Features introduced in Vision Builder AI 2011 and the NI Vision Development Module include new calibration tools to improve accuracy, the ability to store single camera calibration parameters for easy reuse, more powerful data matrix decoding, morphological reconstruction, SSIM (Structural Similarity) indexes for video quality analysis, and new caliper algorithms for metrology.

For more information about the high-performance NI 177x smart camera, please visit ni.com/smartcamera/ko.