Alvium VSWIR | Modular Design TEC-less Cameras with Sony IMX sensors

Megapixel uncooled SWIR cameras with Sony SenSWIR InGaAs sensor technology – Alvium VSWIR Sony IMX992 & Sony IMX993

A True plug-and-play feeling

Whether for quick prototyping, R&D purposes or integration in a fully commercialized product, the Alvium SWIR Sony IMX992 & Sony IMX993 cameras are the ideal solution with a true plug-and-play feeling. Time to image is reduced thanks to Vimba X SDK, a powerful interface and platform-independent SDK. VIMBA X runs on Windows, Linux and Linux for ARM and comes with APIs for C, C++, .NET and Python. GenICam-based Transport Layers support the Alvium cameras and can automatically connect them to third-party software solutions such as MATLAB, OpenCV, Halcon, CVB, and many more.

Offering Low SWaP+C

The Alvium SWIR cameras come in a compact and light-weight form factor with low power consumption making them the ideal choice to build cost-effective OEM systems used in embedded and machine vision applications. Therefore, the Alvium SWIR cmaeras are well suited for drones or handheld devices used in various industries such as agriculture, surveillance, solar cell inspection, medical etc.

Largest InGaAs array & smallest InGaAs pixel pitch in the industry

The Sony IMX992 and Sony IMX993 have approximately 5.32 and 3.21 megapixels respectively, making them the highest-resolution SWIR InGaAs sensors in the industry. To achieve this, Sony has used its original SenSWIR technology to develop a new small pixel size of 3.45 μm, thus offering the smallest InGaAs pixel pitch of the industry.

A Powerful modular design concept

Design your own Alvium SWIR camera based on your application. Starting with a core configuration, many upgrades and options are made available, thus making the Alvium VSWIR cameras the most versatile solution on the market to this day.

Build your own Alvium VSWIR camera – Sony IMX992 & Sony IMX993

1. Core Configuration

2.Upgrades/Options

Alvium VSWIR cameras support a spectral range from 400 nm to 1700 nm at high quantum efficiencies. This allows to capture images in both the visible and SWIR spectra with a single camera and enables users to reduce overall system costs.

Equipped with Sony IMX992 or Sony IMX993 SenSWIR InGaAs sensors, Alvium VSWIR cameras deliver high image quality and frame rates at small Size, light Weight, and low Power consumption, including low Cost (SWaP+C). This makes them well suited for drones or handheld devices used in various industries such as, agriculture, mining, solar cell inspection or medical.

Our compact and light-weight Alvium SWIR cameras are the ideal choice to build cost-effective OEM systems used in embedded and machine vision applications. Thereby, the industrial grade Alvium VSWIR cameras and drivers provide a plug & play feeling whenever setting up your system solution.

Alvium GigE, 5GigE, and USB cameras can be easily integrated into embedded systems with Allied Vision’s next generation Vimba X SDK, a fully GenICam-compliant platform-independent SDK for all Allied Vision cameras with GigE, 5GigE and USB3 Vision Interface.

GenICam-based Transport Layers support the Alvium vVSWIR cameras and can automatically connect them to third-party software solutions such as MATLAB, OpenCV, Halcon, CVB, and many more.

To operate Alvium CSI-2 cameras on your vision system, Allied Vision provides different access modes:

• GenICam for CSI-2 Access controls the camera by GenICam features, using the Alvium CSI-2 driver and CSI-2 transport layer (TL) directly.
• Direct Register Access (DRA) to control the cameras via registers for advanced users.
• Video4Linux2 Access allows to control the cameras via established V4L2 API and applications like GStreamer and OpenCV.

Alvim VSWIR benefits at a glance:

• Small size, low weight, power, and costs enable you to build SWaPc solutions:
  • Compact housing with small WxH footprint of 29mm x 29mm
  • Bare-board and open-housing options for very compact system designs
  • Low power consumption <2W ideal for battery powered system
• Innovative digital InGaAs sensors with the industry‘s smallest pixels and a high-precision sensor alignment at  production time provide you great image quality, which will increase the accuracy of your inspection system
• High frame rates and flexible ROI control options empower you to speed up processes on-demand
• On-board Automatic Gain Control (AGC) and Contrast Control will enhance your vision quality under challenging conditions, like: 24h day & night imaging or when seeing through dust or haze
• A wide operating temperature range and on-board temperature monitoring secure you a reliable operation under diverse conditions

Features of Alvium 1800 SWIR cameras:

• Resolutions: up to 1.3 megapixels
• Sensor: Innovative Sony SenSWIR InGaAs sensors supporting a wide spectral range from 400 nm to 1700 nm
• Frame rates: up to 223 frames per second
• Housing options: Bare Board, Open Housing, or Closed Housing
• Lens mount options: C-Mount, CS-Mount, or S-Mount
• Power consumption: <2W
• Operating temperature: -20°C to +65°C (case temperature)

For cooled version, see Goldeye SWIR G-130 and G-030 cameras.

To learn more about SWIR applications, visit our application page here.

ALVIUM^® is a powerful, energy-efficient processor including an Image Signal Processor (ISP) and an Image Processing Library (IPL). It allows image corrections and pre-processing on the camera to optimize image quality and throughput for your application while offloading your CPUs on the embedded system.

Visit our SWIR application page now!

• Semiconductor industry: Solar cell and chip inspection
• Recycling industry: Plastic sorting
• Medical imaging, sciences: Hyper- and multi-spectral imaging
• Glass industry: Defect detection through hot glass
• Agriculture industry: Airborne remote sensing
• Printing industry: Seeing hidden features
• Surveillance: Vision enhancement (for example, seeing through fog or haze)
• Security: Counterfeit detection (such as for money, faked hair, or skin)

Read more about the SenSWIR technology

Read more about InGaAs

QE Curve – Sony IMX990, IMX991, IMX992 and IMX993

Alvium VSWIR Applications

Visit our SWIR application page now!

• Semiconductor industry: Solar cell and chip inspection
• Recycling industry: Plastic sorting
• Medical imaging, sciences: Hyper- and multi-spectral imaging
• Glass industry: Defect detection through hot glass
• Agriculture industry: Airborne remote sensing
• Printing industry: Seeing hidden features
• Surveillance: Vision enhancement (for example, seeing through fog or haze)
• Security: Counterfeit detection (such as for money, faked hair, or skin)

USB interface – closed housing

Alvium 1800 U-130 VSWIR Datasheet

Alvium 1800 U-030 VSWIR Datasheet

USB interface – bare-board level

Alvium 1800 U-030 VSWIRm Bare-Board Standard Datasheet

Alvium 1800 U-130 VSWIRm Bare-Board Standard Datasheet

Alvium 1800 U-130 VSWIRm Bare-Board 90 Datasheet

Alvium 1800 U-030 VSWIRm Bare-Board 90 Datasheet

MIPI interface

Alvium 1800 C-130 VSWIR Datasheet

Alvium 1800 C-030 VSWIR Datasheet

GigE and 5GigE interfaces

Alvium G1-130 VSWIR Datasheet

Alvium G1-030 VSWIR Datasheet

Alvium G5-130 VSWIR DataSheet

FPD-Link 3 interface

Alvium FP3-030 VSWIR Coax Datasheet

Alvium FP3-030 VSWIR STP Datasheet

Alvium FP3-130 VSWIR Coax DataSheet

Alvium FP3-130 VSWIR STP Datasheet

GM2 interface

Alvium GM2-030 VSWIR Coax Datasheet

Alvium GM2-030 VSWIR STP Datasheet

Alvium GM2-130 VSWIR Coax Datasheet

Alvium GM2-130 VSWIR STP Datasheet

VIMBA X SDK

Vimba X in a nutshell:

• • Vimba X runs on Windows 10 and 11, Linux, Linux ARM, and macOS (all 64-bit)
  • GigE, USB, and CSI-2 transport layers
  • C, C++, and Python APIs
  • Image Transform library
  • Viewer
  • NEW: Vimba X Viewer contains a Sequencer tab to ease sequencing with Alvium cameras

Platform independent

Vimba X was tested with:

• Windows:  Windows 11 23H2, Windows 10 21H2 LTSC (min requirement: PC or laptop with 64-bit x86 processor or better)
• Linux:  Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, Debian 12.2 (min requirement: PC or laptop with 64-bit x86 processor or better)
• ARM64: NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.0 (L4T 35.1.0) on AGX Orin Developer Kit (min requirement: ARM board with ARMv8-compatible 64-bit processor)
• MacOS: macOS Sonoma 14.1.1 (compatible hardware: Mac mini with M2 chip, MacBookPro with M2 chip)

sony imx992

To operate Alvium CSI-2 cameras on your vision system, Allied Vision provides different access modes:

• GenICam for CSI-2 Access controls the camera by GenICam features, using the Alvium CSI-2 driver and CSI-2 transport layer (TL) directly.
• Direct Register Access (DRA) to control the cameras via registers for advanced users.
• Video4Linux2 Access allows to control the cameras via established V4L2 API and applications like GStreamer and OpenCV.

The CSI-2 transport layer contained in Vimba X can be used with several ARM boards / SOMs and drivers available on GitHub:

• Compatible NVIDIA SOMs, JetPack versions, and the latest versions of the driver:https://github.com/alliedvision/linux_nvidia_jetson

• i.MX 8M Plus Evaluation Kit (Yocto): https://github.com/alliedvision/alvium-manifest-imx8mpevk

• AMD Xilinx Kria KV260 (Yocto): https://github.com/alliedvision/alvium-manifest-kv260

• AMD Xilinx ZCU106 Eval Kit (Yocto): https://github.com/alliedvision/alvium-manifest-zcu106

From quick prototyping to sophisticated development

Vimba provides four APIs with extensive documentation and code examples:

The Python API is perfect for a quick and easy start or for prototyping.
The C API is Vimba’s basic and easy-to-use API. It can also be used as API for C++ applications.
The C++ API has an elaborate class architecture. It is designed as a highly efficient and sophisticated API for advanced object-oriented programming including the STL (standard template library), shared pointers, and interface classes. If you prefer an API with less design patterns, we recommend the Vimba C API.
The .NET API supports all .NET languages, for example, C#, C++/CLI, or Visual Basic .NET. Its general concept is similar to the C++ API.

All APIs cover the following functions:

• Listing currently connected cameras
• Controlling camera features
• Receiving images from the camera
• Notifications about camera connections or disconnections

The Image Transform Library converts camera images into other pixel formats and creates color images from raw images (debayering). While this is separated for the C and C++ API, the .NET API includes these functions. Therefore, a .NET application does not have to access the Image Transform Library. The APIs use GenICam transport layer (GenTL) libraries to communicate with the cameras.

Third-party libraries compatibility

Vimba’s transport layers automatically connect  to third-party software, for example, LabVIEW, MATLAB, OpenCV, Halcon, CVB, µManager and more

Alvium VSWIR Accessories

USB cables – Alvium vswir – Sony IMX993

MIPI CSI-2 FPC cables

Adapter board for NVIDIA Jetson TX2 and AGX Xavier

Adapter board for NVIDIA Jetson Nano and Jetson Xavier NX Developer Kit

I/O cables

Mount adapter

Tripod mounting plate for Alvium CSI-2 and USB3 cameras. 1x UNC 1/4-20 1x M6 thread

C-mount VSWIR lenses

Click HERE to view available SWIR lenses.