Downsize your Surveillance Systems

Infrared Stacked DRAGON yields double power

Source: OSRAM

Not much space available, but heaps of infrared light needed? With its high optical power, the infrared Stacked DRAGON might just solve that problem. Camera systems such as those for automated number plate recognition are quite often wanted small in size to fit into existing posts or gates. Yet at the same time they need to provide enough irradiance for the camera to take high quality pictures even in bad weather conditions. Number plate recognition is one of those often-unnoticed processes that make our life more convenient or even more secure. The systems control the entry to security areas and private parking spaces. Automatic toll systems rely on them and traffic surveillance systems use their data to determine the actual traffic flow on certain roads. Car park gates can match parking tickets to the respective registration number.

Many of these systems comprise a camera and a separate illumination unit. Powerful infrared LEDs, however, allow merging the two subunits into one, because fewer components are needed. Using unique technology developed for lasers, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors managed to nearly double the optical power of its conventional thin-film infrared chips. At only 1mm² in size, the new chip yields almost 1 Watt light output at a driving current of 1 Ampere. The result is the infrared Stacked DRAGON – an extremely bright but compact infrared LED. Suited for standard optics, the IRED provides the high radiant intensity that is needed for applications like automated number plate recognition. With a forward voltage of 2.9 Volts at 1 Ampere it can be operated with a standard LED driver. Moreover, its wavelength of 850nm matches the camera’s sensitivity range well and yet is hardly picked up by human eyes at night. Like all semiconductor light sources, the IRED offers designers fast switching times, and thus can be triggered with the camera shutter. Systems that are based on conventional infrared DRAGON devices can be upgraded to twice the power without modifying the design.

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