Strategic partnership in imaging!

Mitsubishi Electric Europe has chosen Stemmer Imaging as strategic partner for the distribution of Mitsubishi Electric Europe's Contact Image Sensors (CIS) throughout Europe. Stemmer showed a first demo system with a CIS product at VISION 2012 last week.

For many years Mitsubishi Electric Europe has offered cost-effective and easy to use solutions for the development of compact optical colour readers, mainly for high end document scanning with the highest scan rates. The new KD series of contact image sensors feature a CameraLink interface, increased working distance and higher speeds and are the first sensors Mitsubushi Electric Europe have produced targeted at the machine vision industry.

Samples of the new KD series will be available before the end of this year with mass production starting in the 2nd Quarter of 2013. The colour quality in combination with the very high scan rates of this system is impressive and clearly suggests that this technology is a promising solution for demanding applications. Applications for the CIS technology can be found in all areas where flat objects and materials are to be tested quickly and with high resolution, e.g. for the inspection of printed circuit boards, printed matter or LCD panels.

The products feature scan widths of 309, 617 and 926 mm and have a colour resolution of 600 dpi and a working distance of 12 mm. The line rate of 23 kHz allows scan rates of 960 mm/s equivalent to 44 µs/line. The Contact Image Sensors supply data in both 8- or 10-bit formats over a configurable Camera Link output. The use of the integrated tri-linear sensors with filter-on-chip and white LED illumination is unusual in industrial CIS products but is proven in existing line scan cameras.

The recently signed agreement appointed STEMMER IMAGING as the distribution channel for the Mitsubishi Electric CIS KD series in all European countries starting from 1 October 2012. "Mitsubishi Electric Europe´s Contact Image Sensors complement our product portfolio in a very useful, powerful way," emphasises Peter Keppler, Machine Vision Sales Manager at STEMMER IMAGING. "With Mitsubishi Electric Europe, we now have a very reliable partner supplying this type of product for which we see a significant number of appropriate applications."