CCD micro-miniature color camera

Abstract

A microminiature CCD color camera system with the world's smallest camera head, utilizing a CCD image sensor, has been developed.The thumb-sized camera head (only 17.5 mm in diameter and 53 mm in length) incorporates a small wide-angle 7.5 mm focal lens, a 200,000 picture element CCD image sensor with color filter array and compact electronic circuits.The tiny head is connected to the paperback book sized camera control unit by a slim cable (4 mm in diameter).The system can produce high-quality color pictures which are applicable to a wide range of fields, such as TV broadcasting, au tomated production, robotics education and medicine. NTSC output Fig. 2 Micro-miniature color camera circuit diagramThe thumb-sized camera head is only 17.5 mm in diameter, 53 mm in length and 25 g in weight. It incorporates a special packaged CCD image sensor having 490 V X 380 H picture elements, a newly developed 7.5 mm wide-angle taking lens with manual focusing and iris adjustable mechanism and a compact electronic circuit.Considering the lens utility, size and weight, focal length f =7.5 mm and F-number F = 1.6 were decided upon.Focusing is adjustable manually from 20 mm to 00. With the extremely near position, 20 mm, 40 times enlarged images can be displayed on a 20 in. color television monitor screen.