<title>Digital high-speed PDA camera</title>

Abstract

A digital high speed photodiode array (PDA) camera had been developed in NINT (Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology). The high speed digital camera was designed compact with high performance that could be applied to conduct area scan. It was constructed by using a high speed PDA as image sensor, which has a fiber optic faceplate coupling to the sensing surface of the device. The camera had a single channel video format that allows video rates up to 1,000 frames per second with exceptional noise immunity and more than 100 times optical dynamic range. Because of the uses of digital signal processing, the quality of image could be made very clearly. We have also adopted the technology, Field Programmable Gate Array, as timing block which makes the camera better work with high reliability. The camera has a wide-range output voltage up to 18 Vp-p, which is suitable for long distance transmission. Advanced features such as frame reset and single work status allows the camera was synchronized to external events. This work details the essential design features and the applications of the high speed PDA camera.