Company’s Metavision® sensor is first mass production chip to allow commercial-scale adoption of breakthrough machine vision technology in Industry 4.0 and Industrial IoT
PARIS – September 25, 2019 – Prophesee SA, inventor of the most advanced neuromorphic vision systems, today introduced the first industry-standard packaged chip that leverages Event-Based Vision technology, a significant advancement over traditional frame-based vision approaches.
Under development for the past five years and commercially tested by several customers, this third-generation version houses a Prophesee-enabled VGA-resolution sensor and represents the industry’s first implementation of Event-Based Vision technology in a commercially-viable, industry standard package.
This new packaged version of Prophesee’s Metavision® sensor is aimed at developers of cameras to enable next-generation vision in industrial automation and IoT systems such as robots, inspection equipment, monitoring and surveillance devices. It leverages Prophesee’s use of neuromorphic vision technology to offer highly efficient machine vision capabilities for a variety of use models, including ultra high-speed part counting, vibration measurement and monitoring or kinematic monitoring for predictive maintenance. It allows for unprecedented speed, dynamic range, data volume, and power efficiency.
“This is a major milestone for Prophesee and underscores the progress in commercializing our pioneering Event-Based Vision sensing technology. After several years of testing and prototyping, we can now offer product developers an off-the-shelf means to take advantage of the benefits of our machine vision inventions that move the industry out of the traditional frame-based paradigm for image capture,” said Luca Verre, co-founder and CEO of Prophesee
Making Event-Based Vision a commercial reality
In Prophesee Metavision® sensors, each pixel is independent and asynchronous. Each pixel only activates itself if it senses a change in the scene, a movement – an event. This proprietary Event-Based approach allows for major reductions of power, latency and data processing requirements imposed by traditional frame-based systems.
It enables sensors to achieve much higher dynamic ranges than commonly associated with high-speed vision. And it allows cost-efficient sensors and systems to record events that would otherwise require conventional cameras to run at 10,000 images/second and more.
The sensor can be used by system developers to improve and in some cases create whole new industrial uses, including accelerating quality assessment on production lines; positioning, sensing and movement guidance for robots to enable better human collaboration; and equipment monitoring (e.g. caused by vibration, kinetic deviations) making the system an asset for predictive maintenance and reduced machine downtime.
Performance highlights include:
- 40-200 µS ultra-low latency
- 66 Meps max. bandwidth
- >120 dB wide dynamic range
- 0.04 lux low-light cut-off
- <1 MHz background noise activity
Robust Toolkit Support
The sensor is supported by a robust development environment that includes a comprehensive software development kit (SDK), a full set of drivers, the Prophesee Player tool for recording sequences and visualizing data and access to the Prophesee Online Portal, a detailed knowledge center containing useful resources for developers.
The chip, available in a 13×15 mm mini PBGA package, integrates Prophesee’s third generation CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) vision module. It features 640 x 480-pixel resolution with 15 μm pixels in a 3/4” optical format.
It is manufactured in a .18 micron specialized CIS process. The packaging was realized by Kingpak, an expert in CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) micro packaging.
About Prophesee
Prophesee (formerly Chronocam) is the inventor of the world’s most advanced neuromorphic vision systems. The company is developing a breakthrough Event-Based approach to machine vision that allows for significant reductions of power, latency and data processing requirements imposed by traditional frame-based systems.
Prophesee’s patented neuromorphic-based sensors and algorithms are based on how the human eye and brain work to dramatically improve efficiency in areas such as autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, IoT, security and surveillance, and AR/VR.
Prophesee, based in Paris, with local offices in China, Japan and USA, is driven by a team of 100 visionary engineers, holds more than 50 international patents and is backed by leading international investors including 360 Capital Partners, Supernova Invest, iBionext, Intel Capital, Renault Group, and Robert Bosch Venture Capital.
For more information visit: www.prophesee.ai
