Newark is now shipping an easy to mount and compact Human Vision Component (HVC) from Omron Electronic Components. The HVC incorporates 10 different image sensing functions and a choice of wide angle and long-distance options to match users' needs for applications from digital signage and vending machines, to home appliances and security doors.

The HVC is an image-sensing unit that can recognize human face expression, gender, age, gaze and blink into a camera module. The HVC-P2 boasts a maximum recognition speed 10 times of HVC model. The 10 image-sensing functions recognize human conditions such as face detection, human body detection, hand detection, face direction estimation, gaze estimation, blink estimation, age estimation, gender estimation, expression estimation, (five facial expressions: neutral, happiness, surprise, anger & sadness) and face recognition. The HVC-P2 consists of a camera and a separate main board connected via a flexible flat cable allowing it to be installed on the edge of a flat display unit. And users can select from three output images:  no image output, 160x120 pixels and 320x240 pixels.

Cliff Ortmeyer, Global Head of Technical Marketing for Newark said: "Design engineers are constantly having to incorporate the latest technologies into their designs, which often require specialized knowledge to implement from the ground up. One solution to this challenge is to use modular components, enabling the addition of new functionality without a deep experience in complex topic areas such as facial recognition. The Omron HVC, available from Newark, is one such device that allows design engineers to simply and effectively equip their IoT device with the latest technologies, while keeping time to market and costs down."

Key features include:

• 1600×1200 pixel detection resolution

• Long range and wide angle options: Long range - horizontal detection range (angle of view) is 54°, vertical detection range (angle of view) is 41°. Wide angle - horizontal detection range (angle of view) is 94°, vertical detection range (angle of view) is 76°

• Supply voltage is 5VDC ±10%, consumption current below 0.4A

• Operating temperature range from 0°C to +50°C (no condensation or freezing)

• Easy to mount and compact format to provide image sensing capability to various devices

• RAW (8bit, Y data) image format

• Camera board size is 25mm x 25mm, main board size is 45mm x 45mm

The Omron Human Vision Component is available from Newark in North America, Farnell in EMEA, and element14 in Asia Pacific.