IDS Imaging Development Systems GmbH this week announced that it has expanded its Ensenso N-Series line of 3D cameras, which new electronics designed specifically for robotics and automated series production. The company said its cameras are designed to be suitable for use in harsher environments.

Since its foundation in 1997 as a two-man company, IDS has developed into an independent, ISO-certified family business with more than 300 employees. The company’s headquarters in Obersulm, Germany, is both a development and production site, and it has offices in Stoneham, Mass., as well as in Japan, South Korea, and the U.K.

IDS said it makes high-performance, easy-to-use USB, GigE, and 3D cameras with a wide spectrum of sensors and variants for a wide variety of industries. In addition to its successful CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) cameras, IDS manufactures vision app-based, intelligent cameras. The company said its IDS NXT image-processing platform “is freely programmable and extremely versatile.”

Ensenso cameras include rounded, rugged features

The new Ensenso N40 and N45 models feature a novel design, both inside and outside, said IDS. Lightweight and with rounded edges, they could be useful for applications such as in collaborative robots. The housing of the new Ensenso N40/N45 3D cameras is made of fiber-reinforced plastic, which IDS claimed results in the lightest stereo vision cameras with Gigabit Ethernet in the IDS product range.

For example, when mounted on a robot arm, the design could put less stress on robot mechanics, said IDS. The rounded edges of the new Ensenso cameras also minimize the risk of injury. In addition, the housing meets the requirements of protection class IP65/67 and is effectively protected against dirt, dust, and water spray.

IDS added that it has updated the electronics for its new 3D cameras: The improved infrared projector enables higher light output and has an optimized heat management, enabling better data quality or higher clock rates, said IDS. The projector is optionally available with blue illumination in the visible range (465 nm) or with infrared illumination (850 nm).

The new Ensenso models each include two monochrome CMOS sensors (global shutter, 1280 x 1024 pixels) and are equipped with screwable GPIO connectors for trigger and flash. Power-over-Ethernet allows data transfer and power supply to be realized, even over long cable distances, said IDS.

A new stereo-matching process, which is available as standard for all models when using the Ensenso SDK 3.0, is intended to ensure detailed point clouds. The company said “PatchMatch” works effectively with a large distance range at different object distances and without significant effects on the execution speed of the algorithm. This could benefit applications in which large volumes are to be captured in the shortest possible time, said IDS.

Customers can use the Ensenso selector online to choose the best camera model for their needs, said IDS.