What is a High Speed Camera?

Have you ever tried to watch a raindrop form or a balloon burst, only to find it happens too quickly for your eyes to catch? The human eye is remarkable but has its limits—it processes visual information at about 60 frames per second. This is sufficient for everyday activities but inadequate for observing rapid phenomena.

Here comes high speed photography into the scene:  High- speed cameras can capture thousands of frames per second, revealing details of fast events that are otherwise invisible to us. For instance, the formation of a water droplet occurs in milliseconds, making it impossible to observe with the naked eye. High-speed cameras allow us to study such fleeting moments in detail.

In the automotive industry, high-speed cameras are indispensable for crash testing. They record the high-speed sequence of events during a collision, providing insights into vehicle deformation, airbag deployment, and occupant movement. Such information was crucial for making vehicles safer and protecting passengers.

AOS Technologies AG, founded in 1998, has been at the forefront of high-speed imaging solutions. Our cameras are utilized worldwide in various industries, including automotive crash testing, to enhance safety and performance. Whenever an event happens too fast for the naked eye, these cameras provide detailed insights into high-speed events.

In this article, we'll explore the evolution of high-speed imaging and its impact on technology and safety.

Have you ever wondered why you can't simply use a standard video camera to capture extremely fast events? To understand this, let's take an engineering perspective.

Standard video cameras are designed to create a sequence of images that appear continuous to the human eye. For instance, a typical video camera captures 50 frames per second, meaning there's a 20-millisecond interval between each frame. Any event occurring within this 20-millisecond window may go unrecorded.

In many engineering applications, the specific requirements dictate the type of high-speed digital camera needed. If you need to record events that occur faster than the human eye can perceive, it's essential to determine the appropriate frame rate for your application. While there's no universal definition, cameras with frame rates above 100 frames per second are generally considered "high-speed cameras." Ultimately, the necessary frame rate depends on the specific needs of your field of use.

Have you ever wondered how an airbag unfolds?

Consider the example of airbag deployment. A typical side airbag inflates in approximately 15 to 20 milliseconds. With a standard video camera, you might see one frame with the airbag undeployed and the next with it fully inflated, missing the critical deployment phase in between.

High-speed cameras address this limitation by capturing images at much higher frame rates, allowing engineers to analyze rapid events in detail. Depending on the desired level of detail, engineers might choose to capture one frame every millisecond, yielding about 20 frames during the airbag deployment, or opt for even higher frame rates to observe more intricate details.

Such slow-motion videos taken with high fps help understanding the nature of an unfolding airbag in great detail.