Seeing the whole picture – the true advantages of CoaXPress v2.0

Vision Systems Design recently published an interesting article looking at some of the less well-known features of the latest version of CoaXPress. As contributors to the creation of this vision standard, we’re keen to bring these benefits to the attention of vision system engineers everywhere. We outlined many of these advantages in our news post in April last year, but VSD’s article has highlighted some features in addition to the increased speeds offered by CXP v2.0.

The obvious advantages

Data rate: CXP v2.0 increases the maximum speed to 10 Gbps for CXP-10 and 12.5 Gbps for CXP-12. Links can also be concatenated so a 4-link frame grabber can now receive data at up to 50 Gbps.
Cables: A single coax cable delivers video, camera control, and triggering functions with 13W of DC power at 24 VDC.
Uplink speed: This has been doubled to 42 Mbps so trigger rates over 500kHz are now possible.
GenICam: Mandatory support for GenICam has always been part of the CXP standard, including GenTL, but new event packets now allow the camera to send status information.

Further advantages

Frame grabber: CoaXPress requires the use of a frame grabber which adds stability to image processing and reduces the load on the CPU. GigE Vision at 10 Gbps does not require a frame grabber but at higher frame rates CPU overload, instability and relative high latencies are frequent problems.
Multi camera systems: Real-time triggering is a clear benefit of CoaXPress when using multi camera systems and a key feature in many industrial inspection applications. CXP v2.0 has also introduced multi-destination capability so that data can be output from a single camera to multiple frame grabbers which can be located in different PCs.
Connectors: The preferred connector for v2.0 is a Micro-BNC, also called an HD-BNC. This smaller connector can be incorporated into more compact hardware.
Chipsets: Sub-optimal hardware, including worn cables and connector issues, is identified by the use of chipsets in the frame grabber and camera, allowing for simple detection of faults.
Time stamping: The new feature of Unified Time Stamping improves the reporting of events coming from devices, hosts, and software into a unified time reference.

Want to know more about CoaXPress? See our website resources for more details, including an in-depth review written by our CTO, Chris Beynon, technical chair for the CoaXPress standard, in conjunction with IMVE.