JAI announced today that its WA-1000D-CL camera has earned a Silver Award in the 2017 Vision Systems Design Innovators Awards program. The award was presented at the Automate 2017 trade show being held this week in Chicago, IL, USA. The judging panel consisted of esteemed experts from system integrator and end-user companies in the fields of machine vision, factory automation, optics, and other related disciplines.

JAI’s Wave Series WA-1000D-CL is a dual-sensor, prism-based line scan camera that operates within the short wave infrared (SWIR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It lets system designers create multi-spectral imaging applications within the NIR and SWIR spectrum where traditional CCD and CMOS cameras have little or no spectral response.

The WA-1000D-CL camera contains two separate Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) line scan imagers, offering 1024 pixels each and sensitivity from 900 nm to 1700 nm (NIR/SWIR). A prism assembly in the camera with a dichroic filter coating splits the image to the two imagers by specific wave bands. Imager #1 receives only wavelengths from 900 nm to 1400 nm, while imager #2 receives only wavelengths from 1400 nm to 1700 nm. The imagers are affixed to the prism assembly by a proprietary process that ensures precise pixel-to-pixel alignment of the two imagers with respect to the camera's single optical path.

This is the first product to support such a prism-based approach in the SWIR spectrum. It enables designers to use multi-spectral techniques with simultaneous, precisely-aligned, dual-band image capture of moving objects. It has no moving parts like filter wheel cameras making it well suited to factory assembly lines, aircraft rigging, and other rugged installations. As a line-scan camera, it is well-suited to web-based inspections of food, pharmaceutical pills and powders, aerial vegetation analysis, and other common applications where users need the unique characteristics of SWIR imaging.