Canon Will Soon Start Producing Color Cameras That Can See in the Dark

Canon has developed a camera that can capture high-quality color photographs in the dark. The latest development is a big step forward for future research and development in augmented reality and automated driving.

Japanese publication Nikkei reports that Canon will start mass production of the sensors in 2022.

Night vision cameras make use of infrared rays for capturing pictures in the dark. However, such images either have poor quality or are in black and white. Conventional high-sensitivity cameras can take images in the presence of moonlight, but image noise increases with lesser light.

Canon claims that its new camera can surpass both of them.

How it Works

The image sensors can capture light at 1/10th the brightness of conventional sensors, proving to be an important contribution for industrial applications such as automated driving and surveillance.

The sensors are highly sensitive to light and use Canon’s single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD). Conventional CMOS sensors used in digital cameras send signals based on photons captured over time. SPAD amplifies a single photon captured by the sensor onto a large number of electrons.

In layman terms, Canon’s special sensor can amplify low brightness images much more easily than regular digital cameras.

Sensor Specifications and Capabilities

Canon SPAD sensors boast 3.2 million pixels. The number of pixels in a sensor is directly proportional to the clarity and quality of an image. With the number of pixels available for the SPAD, the sensors are the densest in the world and three-fold the number of pixels in Canon’s conventional sensor.

SPAD can accurately recognize objects, given its ability to recognize the time of light returning in units as precise as 100 picoseconds2.

These sensors measure the distance to an object based on the time taken by reflected light to return from the object. The sensors can capture space in 3D and are expected to have several applications, including use in LIDAR which is used in automated driving, and augmented reality.

Mass Production Begins in H2 2022

The Canon factory in Kawasaki will start mass production in the latter half of 2022. Canon plans on installing the latest sensors in security cameras that will be introduced next year. It also plans on distributing and marketing the sensors to other companies.

Canon is also aiming to build a new image sensor plant in Hiratsuka city for increased production of the sensors and will invest more than Yen 21 billion ($185 million) in the project. The sensors will be mass-produced using the same technology used for conventional CMOS sensors, at almost the same cost.

Canon’s competitors including Panasonic are also working to increase the number of pixels in sensors. While, a subsidiary of the Sony group, Sony Semiconductor Solutions plans on shipping SPAD sensors for LIDAR by March 2022.



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