Early 2009 "Team Itava" of the University of Potsdam Germany made the first place in the Senior Coaching Competition. The team had developed a smart camera which, compared to existing products in the market, deliberately dispensed with the use of any software-based components within the camera. This leads to increased security regarding viruses, worms and Trojans. In addition the image analysis is executed significantly faster than a software solution can provide for.

Itava Systems meanwhile became an innovative spin-off company of the German Institute of Informatics of the University of Potsdam which develops intelligent camera systems and smart image processing algorithms for challenging industrial applications.

Ability to Reconfigure
The award-winning smart camera is based on a special designed platform which uses programmable logic circuits to run the image processing algorithms. By employing this innovative hardware solution it is possible to make use of the inherent parallelism inside the image processing algorithms to increase the performance compared to a software-only execution on even a modern multi-core processor, or existing intelligent cameras.
The hardware platform consists mainly of a board carrying a FPGA and memory chips. Due to the FPGA´s ability to reconfigure it is possible to create an optimized processing design for almost every industrial application. In case of high computing performance requirements, the system can be expanded by connecting additional FPGA boards and thus provide multiple blocks of programmable logic inside. The customers get a modular system that can be configured according to their specific needs.

Versatile use by Individual ­Configuration
The Optor smart camera system of Itava Systems offers the advantage that it can be especially configured for all customer needs and thus forms a universal product for a wide range of applications. Among those applications are airports, military buildings, stations, depots and medical care facilities where the smart systems can contribute a valuable help to safety, quality and care.
For demanding quality assurance tasks, the QL product line was developed as a very robust solution for continuous operation. Based on the high perfor-mance of the FPGA-based image analysis, this system is able to guarantee the quality of the products even at high production speeds.
The scalability of the QL line allows the operation in both, high-end and in low-end applications. The camera system provides intelligent visual quality monitoring for production lanes and works autonomously and controlled from a central point. In the autonomous version the camera only uses its own dedicated resources without any need for resource sharing.
The smart camera system Optor by Itava Systems provides a cost-effective, easy to use, autonomous and robust inspection system for real-time industrial quality control applications.