Disruptive Value for Professional Imaging
Emberion offers monochromatic cameras and image sensors for system integrators, such as manufacturers of sorting systems and hyperspectral cameras. Our products have wide spectral range with specific advantage in longer SWIR wavelengths.
With Emberion’s technological expertise and disruptive solutions, you can create products and services with unprecedented competitive advantage in your R&D and business processes. We offer a wide spectral range and wide dynamic range in the SWIR wavelengths.
Emberion offers imaging sensors and modules at a competitive cost level compared to current solutions such as InGaAs.
Application areas
Emberion provides high-performance and cost-effective infrared imaging solutions for machine vision, automotive industries, security and night vision, medical imaging, as well as industrial process and quality control sectors.
Industrial machine vision
Emberion VIS-SWIR imaging sensors offer insight into material and structural properties of objects and scenes, which exceed human perception and are unattainable by conventional silicon-based imaging technologies.
The cameras allow detection of defect in packages and surfaces including identifying the type of material with the use of the spectral imaging analysis. These spatial and spectral image features are the essence of any machine vision application, e.g., automated inspection, detection, or classification systems. The broad spectral response range of Emberion VIS-SWIR sensors ensure capture of a rich spectral feature set and therefore provide better applicability and improved task performance for a more diverse set of applications.
Potential VIS-SWIR application areas include: (Monochromatic machine vision)
- Process monitoring (e.g., plastic cap enclosures, artwork, and defects in packaging)
- Semiconductor wafer imaging, photovoltaic solar cell inspection
- Laser beam profiling
- Process monitoring in CMOS
- Glass and metal manufacturing
- Steel industry (e.g., detection of slag)
SWIR detectors enable moisture and liquid detection in contrast to visible light. Similarly, lipids and collagens have more prominent spectral features in the SWIR than in the VIS-NIR region. Hence SWIR is used in the food, beverage, and woodwork industries as well as in the medical field.
Enabling hyperspectral imaging
Emberion VIS-SWIR camera is a key enabler for hyperspectral solution, which has a wide range of applications in spectroscopy including both multispectral and hyperspectral imaging. The wide spectral sensitivity range and the ability of SWIR light to penetrate through material layers enable inspection and analysis of material composition and structural properties – even inside packaging.
Cost-competitive manufacturing and the compact sensor and CMOS integrated readout circuitry integration make Emberion’s VIS-SWIR technology particularly well-suited for portable, in-field analysis applications. VIS-SWIR and thermal sensor technologies can be utilised together to achieve improved selectivity, sensitivity, and wider coverage of compounds in chemical imaging applications.
Emberion’s high dynamic range with wide spectral bandwidth provide major advantages in accurate detection and differentiation of dark and bright objects, which is required especially in plastic sorting.
See through Food Packaging
A: Visible Image of plastic food packaging.
B: SWIR image of plastic packaging allowing see through inspection.
Food detection
A: Visible image of potato starch (left), baking soda, sugar, table salt, coconut oil & water
B: SWIR image showing different contrast level of ingredients depending on their moleucular struture & moisture content. The higher the moisture content the darker the object
Potential machine vision applications include: (Hyperspectral imaging)
- Food quality assessments
- Authentication of pharmaceutical products and artwork
- Astronomy (e.g., detecting exo planets)
- Optical sorting (e.g., waste and plastic recycling – enhanced detection beyond 1650 nm – 2000 nm with higher sensitivity)
- Textile sorting e.g., analysis and classification of colours and materials
- Mining e.g., ore sorting, smart mining systems
- Robotics e.g., waste sorting line, welding applications
- Remote sensing and aerial imaging for agriculture and environmental monitoring
- Quality control in food or semiconductor production
- Material classification and analysis
The broad spectral response range of Emberion sensors offers a richer set of spectral features leading to better classification performance. For example, coloured plastics can be identified and sorted more reliably when the imaging spectral region is extended into SWIR wavelengths.
Vision for autonomous vehicles
Emberion cameras offer excellent imaging capabilities for autonomous vehicles for vision through fog and rain with situational awareness that is necessary for safety and comfort.
Emberion provides affordable cameras covering both visible and SWIR spectrum with a single sensor that allows the use of SWIR much more widely than the current solutions on the market.
High Dynamic Range – High dynamic range sensor incorporated in VS20 camera. Emberion’s HDR with 80dB performance is ideal for large variations in brightness level with a single exposure.
- Can handle large variations in irradiance level: operation in day and night conditions, better contrast
- Bright spots do not obscure neighbouring dark objects: headlights in low-light conditions
Better contrast in SWIR than in VIS light: camouflage materials designed for VIS and human eyes.
Emberion also has the capabilities to miniaturise the sensors and cameras that meet the automotive industry requirements e.g., for a front-facing camera, inside car applications, e.g. driver and passenger monitoring and UI (e.g. gesture interfaces, face/gaze tracking). Additionally, low manufacturing cost and limited cooling requirements enable future MWIR camera integrations suitable for automotive applications.
Medical imaging
Visual examination and medical imaging of patients are essential for many diagnostic tasks. VIS-SWIR imaging provides information both on the skin surface and 1–2 centimetres deep in the tissue. It has been shown to bring improvements in the skin cancer diagnostics and to enable dental caries detection without X-ray imaging. Additionally, VIS-SWIR imaging is already used in hospitals for assessing and monitoring the development of partially internal bruising.
A: Visible Image (Visual features dominate)
B: SWIR image seeing through the opaque package.
IR image shows the vials very clearly underneath the opaque package. Some of the printed package labels are not visible in IR light. However, the printings on the left-most vial are visible. The fill-up level of the transparent liquid in the vial is very visible due to the water’s high light absorption factor at 1550 nm
VIS-SWIR imaging systems can be used complementary to X-ray in local healthcare clinics as they require smaller investments than X-ray imaging. Also, there are no radiation safety concerns or limitations how often imaging can be done. The cameras can be used for pharmaceutical imaging for defect detection.
There is a specific need for portable, in-field imaging and diagnostic tools for VIS-SWIR medical imaging:
- Eye retina and lens structures
- Endoscopy: visually guided surgery
- Bruising detection
- Tissue type and biological sample analysis in lab
Enhanced vision for surveillance
Emberion VIS-SWIR and thermal image sensors provide vision solutions in challenging weather and limited lighting conditions. The wide-spectrum VIS-SWIR sensors can capture reflected light from natural and artificial sources with a single sensor unit. Large dynamic range and non-saturating operation make them suitable for both night and daytime operation.
Emberion MWIR and LWIR image sensors currently being developed can detect objects, which emit thermal radiation themselves and are warmer or cooler than their surroundings.
SWIR can penetrate through smoke enabling detection of tank and soldier inside the enclosure very clearly compared to the mobile phone and visible image.
SWIR and thermal radiation can be detected through smoke, rain, and fog and therefore IR imaging offers visibility even in extremely harsh environmental conditions. As VIS-SWIR and thermal imaging technologies capture visual information of inherently different nature from the same scene, they can be utilised together in a complementary fashion.
Emberion sensors can enhance human vision in diverse situations, such as:
- Rescue, security, and surveillance operations
- Enabling night and daytime vision in self-driving vehicles
- Commercial and public security systems
- Defence applications
- Autonomous operating robots
- Night vision
Emberion broad-spectrum VIS-SWIR detectors provide vision in very low-light conditions as they capture all wavelengths of natural night time light available up to 2000 nm. SWIR imagers can also detect objects and light sources designed to be invisible to human eyes and more commonly used VIS-NIR imagers, such as camouflage textiles and laser range finders.
Adverse Condition Surveillance
Thermal imaging
(SWIR and MWIR / LWIR thermography)
Thermal imaging is utilised for detecting objects from the background and for measuring their temperature (thermography). Emberion’s SWIR products and MWIR & LWIR thermal sensors being developed operate at non-cryocooled temperatures and provide excellent sensitivity compared to existing technologies. Emberion’s thermal sensors are ideal for various applications due to their reduced imaging system size, lighter weight, and smaller power consumption, which result in more affordable cost and longer operation time.
In medical applications, thermography is used to compare healthy and diseased tissue using heat contrast. Non-contact measurements of electronic circuits allow rapid identification of failed assembly areas.
Infrared imagers application areas for thermography:
- Quality control in aerospace and automotive industries
- Building quality inspections to determine moisture levels in roofs
- Detect abnormal heating in electrical equipment
- System testing
- Process monitoring
- Fault detection
- Remote sensing
- Chemical imaging (Black plastic detection using MWIR)
- Steel and metal manufacturing (detection of slag in steel processing)
Emberion is also developing an ultra-broadband imager VIS-SWIR-THERMAL for simultaneous imaging of three band under one FPA. See our technology section.