The most demanding imaging applications in traffic control are red-light and speed enforcement. The need to supply high quality images that identify both vehicle and driver and will stand up in court is complicated by an inability to control the imaging environment (lighting, weather etc.) and the fact that the object to be identified may be moving at high speed.

The key requirements of traffic control cameras are that there is sufficient resolution for clear identification of vehicle and/or driver, that relatively high frame rates are possible and that there are no artifacts caused by the fact that the key objects in the field of view may be moving at high speed. A wide range of CCD sensors are available that allow megapixel resolution at frame rates up to full video, which will fulfill the first two of these requirements. However, for many CCD sensor types the combination of moving objects with wide ranges of light levels (e.g. vehicle headlights in an otherwise dark scene), can lead to smearing. When smearing occurs, high brightness and/or moving objects in a scene will leave a trail as they move across the field of view. In order to minimize the effects of smearing in CCD based sensors, an interline sensor can be used. The method of pixel readout in interline sensors minimizes the appearance of these smearing artifacts.

The range of lighting conditions that may be experienced in real world traffic control imaging means that the cameras used requires a high dynamic range and an A/D conversion that allows full use of this dynamic range so that details may be extracted from shadowed areas in the vicinity of bright illumination. Narragansett Imaging provides a range of cameras based on Kodak's interline transfer CCD image sensors that meet all of these requirements.

Narragansett Imaging currently manufactures custom designed cameras for some of the World's leading traffic control companies. We are able to use our extensive experience in this field to develop cameras suited a a wide range of applications and operating conditions. Please look through our pages on custom development of digital camera modules to better understand Narragansett Imaging's capabilities.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss your customized camera requirement then please contact Narragansett Imaging or your nearest representative.