The Meridian® FLEX Camera Testing Platform was designed to provide automotive camera manufacturers and integrators with a powerful tool for evaluating camera performance and image quality. The Platform is flexible enough for the R&D lab and fast enough for production testing of short focal length, small aperture cameras commonly found in automobile safety systems.

A high-speed, high-precision robot positions a target at any specified field point within the camera’s field of view, enabling measurement of just a few, to hundreds of object positions in seconds.

Meridian FLEX offers Cartesian and spherical polar coordinate systems for precise target pointing, and proprietary Meridian® FieldPoint software handles the complex math. The robot points either the target projector at the device under test (DUT), or points the DUT at the target projector.

The robotic capability enables characterization of the full range of camera fields, from narrow field passenger detection to wide-field fisheye views. Furthermore, the FLEX Platform accommodates additional testing modules thereby enabling the assessment of parameters such as veiling glare, signal transfer function, and chromatic characteristics.

The standard optical source for testing is a Meridian® Focusing Target Projector (FTP), which can flexibly simulate objects of varying distance: from close to the camera to infinity.

Advanced driver assistance systems must rely on well-characterized cameras to rapidly and accurately process images to identify oncoming or nearby objects under a variety of environmental conditions and over a range of distances. To meet safety requirements, Meridian FLEX with FieldPoint software measures multiple optical parameters of cameras, including:

•Horizontal and Vertical Resolution
•Optimal Focus Position
•Geometric Distortion
•Focal Length
•Field of View
•Bore-sighting and Roll (with special DUT Nest)
•Stray Light type measurements (with optional stimulus source)
•Chromatic Functions (with optional stimulus source)
•Signal Transfer Function (with calibrated stimulus source)

Additional testing capabilities, such as infrared waveband and temperature testing, are in development to continue to enable the Meridian® FLEX Camera Testing Platform to meet and surpass evolving complex automotive safety requirements.