Soap-size camera cleans up

The

has developed a MicroHDTV camera the size of a bar of soap to shot high-definition footage in even the hardest-to-reach places.

The camera measures 4 x 4 x 8 cm, meaning it can even be accommodated in a cramped racing-car. It has a format up to 1920 x 1080 pixels and a variable frame rate of up to 60 frames per second, meeting the requirements expected of a professional HDTV production. All parameters, such as colour settings, white balance, image format and frame rate, can be controlled using the integrated software via a laptop.

‘We achieved this by taking two different approaches,’ said Stephan Gick, head of Embedded Imaging group at Fraunhofer IIS. ‘The camera has a very low power consumption, which means that little heat is generated and the housing can be kept very small. By using highly integrated parts, we were able to fit all of the components such as the image sensor, the analogue-to-digital converter, the colour processor and several interfaces into the tiny space available inside the camera.’

Several licensees will soon be putting the camera into series production.