22 March 2019 http://www.controlengeurope.com Control Engineering Europe

MACHINE VISION

GigE Vision and beyond

Control Engineering Europe finds out how the GigE Vision standard has evolved

to ensure it continues to meet rapidly changing image data transfer requirements.

GigE Vision has proven to be popular in factory installations where the use of Ethernet cabling and components is common practice.

T

he GigE Vision standard for the

transfer of image data from a

camera to a host computer was

developed in 2006, following

CameraLink as the second data

transfer standard produced specifically

for the machine vision industry. The

standard is based on Gigabit Ethernet

technology and offers users a number of

key benefits:

• Data transmission at rates up to 110
  Mb/sec over distances up to 100m,
  using standard Ethernet cables and
  components.


• Compatibility and interchangeability
  of GigE Vision cameras from any
  manufacturer.


• The network structure means that
  frame grabbers are not required.

Managed by the AIA trade association

(www.visiononline.org) the GigE

Vision standard has been adopted

globally, with most major industrial

vision hardware and software vendors

having developed products that are

GigE Vision-compliant. Since its launch

it has proven to be particularly popular

in factory installations where the use

of Ethernet cabling and components

is common practice, and because of

the long distances over which images

can be transmitted without repeaters.

However, with the increasing availability

of ever higher resolution CMOS image

sensors and ever faster inspection

speeds, the amount of data needing to

be transferred has increased significantly

and this has led to the need for higher

speed data interfaces.

“The vision industry has reacted to this

need with the development of further

vision standards – notably CameraLink

HS, CoaXPress and most recently, USB3

Vision,” said Allan Anderson, chairman

at the UK Industrial Vision Association

(UKIVA). “While these all offer higher

data transmission rates than GigE Vision,

none can transfer images over similar

distances without the use of special

cables and/or repeaters.

“For applications where the higher

data transfer rates are essential, then

one of the alternatives must be used,

with the associated complexity of

cabling. Nevertheless, GigE Vision

continues to dominate the market,

with a survey conducted in 2018 by one

UKIVA member indicating that GigE

Vision still accounted for over 40%

of the machine vision systems used.

According to Mordor Intelligence, the

GigE camera market was worth $0.81

billion in 2017.”

The need for speed

The GigE Vision standard has evolved

since its original launch. GigE Vision 2.0,

released in 2011, improved the real-time