3D Sensor Wins Design News Magazine's 2009 Best Product of the Year - Sensors and Vision Category

ifm's 3D Image Sensor Wins Design News' Best Product of the Year 2009

ifm efector's 3D Image Sensor was awarded Design News' 2009 "Golden Mousetrap" Award in the sensors and vision category. Design News is a leading technical publication and resource for design engineers. Their annual award recognizes engineering innovation and creativity in product design.

ifm's 3D Image Sensor is designed to evaluate size, shape and level in material handling applications. The sensor's innovative technology provides critical information in applications such as palletzing and de-palletizing, material handling, bulk level of materials/food products and intelligent routing/sorting.

The compact sensor uses time-of-flight distance measurement and photonic mixer device technology to identify an object in the sensor's field of view. An integrated 64 x 48 pixel array – in which each pixel represents a time of flight measurement – defines the field of view for the sensor.

The sensor's receiver element is a System-on-Chip design. The complete sensor element and electronics are built on a 0.25 mm square silicon chip which reduces the size of the sensor and its cost.

List price for the 3D image sensor is $1450 (U.S.) which is a benchmark in the industry. Systems such as LIDAR, stereo-vision, and long-range radars are typically 300-400% higher in cost compared to the ifm 3D image sensor.