Imec demonstrates fast hyperspectral camera

The Imec-developed filter provides 100 spectral bands.

-- Test & Measurement World, 2/3/2012 7:00:00 AM

Nanoelectronics research firm Imec demonstrated a hyperspectral camera at SPIE Photonics West 2012 that it says is compact, low cost, and fast. The speed of the demonstrated system, which is based on a system-on-chip image sensor with an integrated hyperspectral sensor, corresponds to an equivalent speed of 2000 lines/s—significantly exceeding current hyperspectral sensors, according to Imec. Moreover, the technology can be adapted to meet the requirements of a wide range of industrial vision applications.

The CMOS-compatible hyperspectral sensor comprises a set of spectral filters that is directly post-processed at wafer level on top of a commercially available CMOSIS CMV4000 4-Mpixel image sensor. The Imec-developed hyperspectral filter has 100 spectral bands between 560 nm and 1000 nm. Filter bandwidth (full width, half max) ranges from 3 nm at 560 nm to 20 nm at 1000 nm. Transmission efficiency of the filters is approximately 85%. Typical integration times used in the current prototype setup are between 2 ms and 10 ms under halogen light illumination of 450 W.

Imec's prototype hyperspectral camera can capture all relevant data enabling automatic classification of different objects. Classification results of Imec's system are equivalent to the latest and most advanced hyperspectral references and recorded spectra.

Imec, www2.imec.be/be_en/home.html