Author: Mihir Mehta

NORTH ATLANTIC 3U OPENVPX SENSOR

Configure with up to 18 I/O and Communication Function Modules

• is lightweight, small and has a low power consumption, making it ideal for UAV, aircraft, and ground vehicle applications.
• processors come in a choice of Freescale PowerPC™ QorIQ® T2080, Intel® Core™ i7, or ARM® Cortex®-A9 & -A53.
• eliminate man-months of integration with a configured, field-proven, 3U OpenVPX rugged COTS system or subsystem complete with rich IO, Processing and Switching.

North Atlantic 3u OpenVPX Sensor

JAI launched the industry’s first 8K prism line scan models 

The SW-8000T-10GE and SW-8000T-SFP provide 8K (8192 pixel) resolution, high performance 10 GigE and SFP+ interfaces, plus the high quality R/G/B color precision that helps prism line scan cameras outperform their trilinear counterparts when it comes to belt sorting, free-fall applications, or any web-based application where there are vibrations, speed variations, or other movements that plague the compensation methods of trilinear cameras.

Whether you are updating your current computers or buying them for a new facility or operation, given the wide selection of products on the market, figuring out the right ones for your company’s specific operations and working environments can be a daunting task. After all, rugged computers are much more than just hard shells . . . This article examines some of the criteria that you should weigh when assessing computers for your challenging—and sometimes nasty—work environments.

Analyzing your rugged computer tasks

One of the first things you want to do is to conduct a detailed analysis of the tasks for which you will be deploying your rugged computers. This requires an assessment of the full range of:

1) Functions your computers need;

2) Environments and environmental challenges that they will face. Some of the questions to ask on this front include:

• What is the operational temperature range?
• For what environmental elements—liquids, dust, salt, etc.—is ingress protection required?
• What vibration and shock might be encountered?
• Is magnetic interference a factor?
• What about pressure/altitude?
• What are the size and weight constraints?
• Are the screen(s) easy to read in bright sunlight?

Depending on the industry in which your company operates, you are likely to benefit by choosing a computer compatible with industry-specific applications and software. This entails choosing a device that runs the correct operating system for the specific application or software you’re planning to install.  You might also choose a device with the software you require pre-installed. This is the case with the Matrox 4Sight EV6 vision controller, a powerful industrial imaging computer for managing multi-camera inspections efficiently and with ease. The Matrox 4Sight EV6 comes with the Matrox Imaging Library (MIL), pre-installed, allowing it to be deployed almost immediately.

Matrox 4Sight EV6 vision controller

Accelerating time to mission is also one of the assets of North Atlantic Industries’ commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) 3U cPCI single board computers. Designed for rugged defense, commercial aerospace, and industrial applications, these rugged computers eliminate man-months of integration.

North Atlantic 3U CPCI single board computer

Rugged computer specifications

Analysis of the tasks for which your computers will be used, and of the environmental challenges, will help you determine the specifications of the computers you require. In this endeavour you may find yourself walking a fine line. On the one hand you want computers with specs that make them sufficiently rugged to perform optimally for a number of years in your challenging work environments—and that provide adequate protection of the valuable data that you obtain with them, as well as for the recovery of lost information; on the other hand, you don’t want to pay for rugged features that you don’t require. Investing in rugged computers can be a significant investment and buying a high-end Lexus when you only need a Corolla can impact the profitability of your operations. You’ve got to find the right balance between price and performance.

The SabreCom series of rugged mission computers: bringing an exciting level of price/performance to the market

Rugged computing partners

Making decisions about the specs requires research into the manufacturers of rugged computers and gives rise to the question of whether you can take advantage of off-the-shelf models or whether you require a degree of customization. It also brings up key, non-technical issues. Buying rugged computers means entering into a relationship with the companies that design and manufacture them, or with companies, such as Integrys, that promote and support manufacturers’ products in the marketplace. Having the right partner in place can help you make the purchase and deployment happen on schedule and on budget—with end user satisfaction that helps raise productivity.

Testing rugged computers

Good partners help you avoid mistakes. And in the world of rugged computing it would be a serious mistake to make a purchase without giving employees who use them an opportunity to thoroughly test them in real-world situations—possibly in multiple situations/locations over an extended period of time. In most cases, testing in the lab is not sufficient. Feedback from your employees telling you that the computers they have been putting through the paces in the field are intuitive/easy-to-use and sufficiently robust and reliable is your best guarantee that you are making a sound business decision.

You need a partner that can work with you. It’s not just the hardware that will help you keep your employees focused on the job. Are your partners in the purchase amenable to you conducting the field testing that you consider necessary before making a commitment?

Warranty

All rugged computers come with a warranty. To optimize your investment it is essential that you fully understand the terms of your warranty.

Contact us 

Click here to learn more about Integrys’s rugged computer offerings.

Integrys is pleased to highlight one of our newest suppliers, Resonon, a rapidly-growing company that designs, manufactures, and supports hyperspectral imagers and related hardware and software for research and industry.

Pika L, 400-1000 nm lightweight VNIR hyperspectral camera

Resonon’s turnkey systems are easy to use, affordable, and provide high-precision data. Founded in 2002, Resonon is based in Boseman, Montana.Resonon hyperspectral systems enable you to accurately and consistently distinguish between similar colors or materials. Their systems are in use worldwide on platforms ranging from airplanes to microscopes. Applications include: 

Machine vision

Hyperspectral machine vision detects small color differences more accurately and identifies different materials more reliably than conventional imaging. Resonon’s system can be interfaced to robots, labeling devices, or used as feedback for sorting, grading, or process control.

Pharmaceuticals

Hyperspectral infrared imagers can identify counterfeits, find defects, and eliminate prescription errors.The image shows three types of white pills, indistinguishable by color to the human eye, but accurately classified via Resonon near-infrared hyperspectral machine vision.

Identifying finished goods

A major manufacturer of laminates uses Resonon machine vision systems at multiple facilities to identify over 30,000 products daily from a library of several thousand.
The image shows two nearly identical products that are accurately differentiated using Resonon machine vision.