5 things about CoaXPress you might not know

CoaXPress was designed in the beginning of 2007 to provide  improvements over existing interfaces in terms of bandwidth, infrastructure costs, ease of implementation, and scalability. With CoaXPress digital video, control, GPIO, triggering and power can be managed with just one single, flexible and cost- effective cable.

The fundamental benefit of CoaXPress is its ability to provide higher performance over longer distances than any other current or emerging standard.

Even though Version 1.0 of the CoaXPress standard was released in December 2010 and global approval of the standard by AIA and EMVA was received in March 2011, there are still many misconceptions about it.

Here are 5 things about CoaXPress you might not know:

There are many CoaXPress frame grabbers available including those for the highest speeds (QUAD 25 Gbits/s).

Active Silicon, Aval Data, Euresys, Bitflow, Matrox Imaging, Silicon Software, Kaya Instruments, and Gidel all have available CoaXPress frame grabbers. The Firebird FPD-4xCXP6 from Active Silicon and the APX-3664 from Aval Data are just two of the frame grabber models that support 25 Gbits/s or CoaXPress QUAD.

The latest version of CoaXPress enables very low power designs

CoaXPress version 1.1 was released in April 2013 and products based on this version are available and have been certified. One of the biggest changes is the introduction of new connectors. In v1.1, the new DIN connector is supported in addition to the existing BNC. The standard can be downloaded on the JIIA website. Another advantage with the new version of the standard is that the implementation can be done for a very low power (less than 9W) camera design.

In global security applications, CoaXPress can ease the upgrade from analog to digital with the use of existing cabling.

Because CoaXPress uses standard coax cables that have been installed in many global security legacy systems utilizing analog day TV cameras, the upgrade to digital can be simplified.

Not only does CoaXPress ease retrofitting older systems, integration into all systems is simplified with fewer cables because separate power and control cables are not required.

CoaXPress cables overcome the limitations of other machine vision interfaces

From the start, CoaXPress was designed to enable high data rates (fully scalable) over long, cost-effective, flexible cables with timing accuracy and power over the interface. For more information about how CoaXPress compares to other machine vision interface standards, click here for the overview paper provided by the AIA.

CoaXPress is enabling innovative medical applications

The long, flexible cables and high data rates through CoaXPress combined with high-resolution image sensors enables the use of machine vision cameras in many new applications including endoscopes and automated digital pathology systems. For an example with non-invasive cancer detection, click here.