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When it comes to developing a camera-related project on embedded systems like the Raspberry Pi (RPi) or NVIDIA Jetson Nano (NJN), we will take many factors into consideration. To help you better select a camera module, here is a quick start guide from Arducam.
If you are going to add a camera module to embedded systems like RPi or NJN, you should know how it’ll be connected. There are several interfaces available on those two devices for camera connection, which lead you to different camera families, respectively MIPI, USB, and SPI cameras.
MIPI Alliance is an organization that develops interface specifications, including the MIPI Camera Serial Interface 2 (MIPI CSI-2). MIPI CSI-2 was widely used in mobile industries, and companies like Apple have long adopted this interface in their smartphones. As this camera interface was high-performance, cost-effective, and easy to use, it was quickly expanded beyond the mobile industry with the support of manufacturers.
Therefore, it’s natural to see this interface on embedded systems like the RPi and NJN. On the Raspberry Pi, the MIPI CSI-2 interface takes the form of two physical connectors: 15-pin connector on standard Raspberry Pi models and a 22-pin connector on Pi zero and Compute Module. The Jetson Nano, on the other hand, adopts the 15-pin connector. The 15-pin and 22-pin connectors work with the same camera modules, just with different flex ribbon cables.
The MIPI CSI-2 interface is the default camera interface for Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano, and the Raspberry Pi camera module V1 and V2 are all based on it. These cameras, along with the third-party upgrades based on them, would serve well to cover most of the basic applications. Even if you want to use these two kinds for multi-camera applications, you can do that with Arducam camera multiplexers and stereo camera HATs.
Powerful and popular as the MIPI CSI-2 Interface seems, it still comes with some limits. The MIPI cameras rely on extra drivers to work, so there is little support of different image sensors if the embedded system manufacturers do not push it forward. Take the Raspberry Pi as an example, we had been stuck with the OV5647 and IMX219 for a long time before the third one – HQ camera – was out.
Arducam has tried hard to change this situation and introduced the Arducam MIPI camera module lineup to fill this gap. With Arducam SDK and examples, you can use various MIPI camera modules on the Raspberry Pi other than the official two.
With Arducam’s latest Pivariety camera series, native ISP tuning on higher-spec sensors is also supported.
However, if the Arducam MIPI camera modules still cannot cover your needs, you might have to consider other interfaces.
Aside from the dedicated MIPI CSI-2 camera interface, the RPi and NJN also come with multiple USB ports for connecting more devices, including USB cameras. The USB cameras adopt the standards of the USB interface, so they are easily expandable and adapted. What’s more, they could be made driver-free by following the USB device standards.
Those driver-free USB cameras are UVC cameras, and those not are usually developer kits for camera evaluation and development. UVC is short for USB Video Class, and it’s one of the USB device classes. The drivers for UVC cameras to work have already been preinstalled in the operating system, so it’s a plug-and-play experience for them.
The most used UVC cameras are webcams, but there are also other UVC cameras available for embedded uses. Arducam offers several UVC board cameras as an implement for our current embedded MIPI camera modules. These cameras have more case-specific features like Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), low light enhancement and so on.
On the other hand, the Arducam USB camera shield is a general-purpose camera control board designed for both PCs and embedded systems like the Raspberry Pi, Odriod, TI Beaglebone, and similar hardware. It supports almost all parallel interface image sensors and many MIPI camera sensors ranging from 0.3MP to 18MP, including both global and rolling shutter sensors. The camera comes with a comprehensive software SDK library and example source code you need to make it work on Windows and Linux systems.
The SPI camera solution is feasible on the Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano platform but is less recommended for those two devices. The SPI camera is a general-purpose camera solution that can work with any device that has SPI and I2C connectors. It was mainly designed for the platforms without a dedicated camera interface, such as the Arduino boards. Although you can use it on a Raspberry Pi, the limited SPI rate will become a handicap for the camera application.
Another thing to consider is the sensor type. It might not apply to all cameras, but most Arducam global shutter cameras are monochrome and most rolling shutter cameras are color sensors.
A color sensor is an image sensor with color filters, and the Bayer array filter is the most common one. A color filter passes light with a certain wavelength and blocks the others in a sub-pixel, and the information on the sub-pixels will then be used to generate the color of the pixel.
Rolling shutter, on the other hand, refers to a method of capturing images. A rolling shutter does not expose the entire sensor simultaneously, instead, it exposes line by line from top to the bottom.
The good thing about the color sensor with a rolling shutter is that it shows what our human eyes see better. It’s cheaper to build and easy to equip with more pixels. However, it may fail to capture objects that move faster than the speed of exposure.
Unlike a rolling shutter camera, a global shutter camera exposes all pixels at the same time. The shutter opens and closes in a short period. Therefore, it can take better pictures of fast-moving objects without blurring the details.
A monochrome sensor captures an image only recording the strength of illumination, regardless of the colors. In this way, it can capture more light – or more specifically, photons – because no light will be blocked by a filter. That’s a good companion for global shutter, because the fast shutter speed and high frame rates on those shutters capture less light during each exposure, and the extra lights passed without the color filter would offset the loss in exposure time.
Conclusion: If you aim at higher frame rates and fast-moving objects, you can go with global shutter monochrome cameras. If you want to capture more details and still photos, you can try a high-resolution rolling shutter color camera.
Unlike human eyes, the cameras cannot switch between objects near the lens and those far away easily. Most times the focus of a camera is set to infinity by default, and you might find it hard to see closer objects, just like the official Raspberry Pi cameras.
If a camera comes with a camera lens, such as an M12 or CS-Mount lens, the focus would be manually adjustable, and you can screw the lens further from the thread to focus on closer objects after it’s focused to infinity.
However, if your application required the focus to change from time to time, you would not want to adjust the focus manually each time. The autofocus camera modules come with built-in motors to move the lens, so you can remotely control the focus either by sending commands or use software for autofocus.
For example, a customer of ours wants to use a camera on Raspberry Pi for day/night surveillance, and he wants to keep the color details at night. At first, he uses a 5MP OV5647 camera, only to find it’s not able to capture enough light for the picture to show anything. He then wants a larger lens to capture more lights and get our CS-Mount lens camera for Raspberry Pi, but the image area is narrower than his expectation and the dark areas are still not identifiable. After knowing his detailed requirements, we have recommended a low-light USB camera module with a wide-angle lens, and he is happy with that.
In conclusion, the key to finding the right module for your project is to know your applications and requirements. Do you need to capture crisp sharp details? How large is the captured area and how far will you be shooting the scene? Does the object move fast like on a convey belt? What is the lighting condition? Will you be using the camera on different platforms?
After figuring out these questions, you can decide between the camera interfaces, colors, Field of View, and focus methods. When all these questions have been answered, we are getting to the right camera.
To date, surveillance systems are widely used in hospitality, catering, retail, education, transportation, and more. IP cameras are an essential component of a business surveillance system to gain visibility and insight of the business, creating a safe environment for staff and customers. Maintaining your video surveillance system properly is as critical as the system itself to your business’s security. When you plan to add a video surveillance system, the essential question always comes: What infrastructure to choose as your supporting equipment? In today's typical business, using PoE (Power over Ethernet) switches for IP camera is very common and popular and should be your first choice.
What is PoE?
Power over Ethernet, or PoE, describes any of the several standard or ad hoc systems that pass both electric power and data on the same twisted pair Ethernet cabling. This allows a single cable to provide both a data connection and electric power to devices such as wireless access points, IP cameras, and VoIP phones. PoE has the advantage of allowing connected devices to be used without the need for additional power outlets, saving time and money in power cord configuration and reducing system layout costs.
PoE standards provide signaling between the power sourcing equipment (PSE) and powered device (PD). Its protocols are divided into 802.3af, 802.3at, and 802.3bt. The maximum output power of 802.3af and 802.3at are 15.4 W and 30 W, respectively. 802.3bt is divided into two power types (Type 3 and Type 4), and the maximum output powers of the two bt types are 60 W and 90 W, respectively.
Property
802.3af
802.3at
802.3bt (Type 3)
802.3bt (Type 4)
Maximum power delivered by PSE
15.4 W
30 W
60 W
90W
Power available at PD
12.95 W
25.5 W
51 W
71 W
Voltage range (at PSE)
44–57 V
50–57 V
50–57 V
52–57 V
Voltage range (at PD)
37–57 V
42.5–57 V
42.5–57 V
41.1–57 V
Maximum current
350 mA
600 mA
600 mA per pair
960 mA per pair
Power Requirements of IP Cameras
In general, 802.3af PoE with a maximum of 15.4 W power output is enough to power most security cameras. For a camera with high power consumption, like PTZ cameras, 802.3at PoE with maximum 30 W power output is usually adequate.
Simultaneously, cameras come with a variety of different wattage demands and the sum power must be less than the switches’ total PoE Budget. Power consumption and a number of powered devices, line loss, and an additional reserved power budget should be considered. Line loss is affected by PSE power, transmission distance, and cable quality. For line loss, comparing the test results of PSE output of 30 W, 15 W, and 10 W (CAT5E cable) at 100 m, the loss of the three kinds of output power is around 1.1 W, 0.8 W, and 0.3 W, respectively.† For example, when you have four cameras with 12 W power consumption individually connected to a switch, the PoE power budget of the switch should exceed 4 × (9 W + 0.8 W) = 39.2 W. When considering the additional reserved power budget, a PoE switch with more than 40 W would be an ideal choice.
Network Requirements of IP Cameras
There are four main elements that affect IP cameras’ bandwidth and internet speed—Resolution, FPS (Frame Rate per Second), Video compression codec, and the number of cameras.
In order to ensure stable video transmission, the peak bandwidth of monitoring is generally 120% of the stream’s bitrate. As a result, the recommended bandwidth of every camera is calculated as follows. The mainstream is generally a high-definition picture, used for recording and single-screen display; the sub-stream is generally a standard-definition picture, used for network transmission or a multi-screen display, usually at 0.5 Mbps
Bandwidth = 1.2× (Bitrate (main stream) + Bitrate (sub stream)).
Additionally, the actual bandwidth of the switch is typically 50%~70% of the theoretical speed. Hence, the calculated bandwidth needs to divide by 0.7 to get the recommended theoretical bandwidth of the switch. Here you can find the common camera resolution and the corresponding recommended switches.‡ It could be seen that 10/100 Mbps switches are enough to transmit the video data for almost all scenarios.
Resolution
H.264 Bandwidth (Mbps)
Switch Downlink Ports (Mbps)
Recommended Switch Uplink Ports (Mbps)
1 Camera
2 Cameras
4 Cameras
8 Cameras
16 Cameras
32 Cameras
48 Cameras
2560×1920 (5MP)
10.5
18.0
18.0
36.0
72.0
144.0
288.0
576.0
864.0
2560×1440 (4MP)
8.5
14.6
14.6
29.1
58.3
116.6
233.1
466.3
699.4
1920×1080 (2MP)
4.5
7.7
7.7
15.4
30.9
61.7
123.4
246.9
370.3
1280×720 (1MP)
2.5
4.3
4.3
8.6
17.1
34.3
68.6
137.1
205.7
768×432 (0.33MP)
1.5
2.6
2.6
5.1
10.3
20.6
41.1
82.3
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123.4
720×480 (0.4MP)
1.2
2.1
2.1
4.1
8.2
16.5
32.9
65.8
98.7
Switch Recommendations
According to the analysis above, PoE switches with 10/100 Mbps ports are sufficient to meet the requirements of common IPC. TP-Link’s 100 Mbps PoE switches are specially designed to address specific SMB surveillance needs and satisfy the demands of most IP cameras. Many robust features like Extend Mode, Priority Mode, and Isolation Mode provide value well beyond basic networking needs, creating a versatile and reliable surveillance network to grow your business.
Layer
PoE Ports
Non-PoE Ports
Model
PoE Budget† (W)
PoE Standards
Extend Mode Button
Priority Mode Button
Isolation Mode Button
Fanless Design
Unmanaged
4× FE
1× FE
TL-SF1005LP
41
802.3af
Ports 1-4
Ports 1-2
-
√
TL-SF1005P
67
802.3af/at
Ports 1-4
Ports 1-2
-
√
2× FE
TL-SF1006P
67
802.3af/at
Ports 1-4
Ports 1-2
-
√
4× FE
TL-SF1008LP
41
802.3af
Ports 1-4
Ports 1-2
-
√
TL-SF1008P
66
802.3af/at
Ports 1-4
Ports 1-2
-
√
8× FE
1× FE
TL-SF1009P
65
802.3af/at
Ports 1-4/1-8
Ports 1-2
Ports 1-8
√
2× GE +
1× SFP
TL-SL1311MP
124
802.3af/at
Ports 1-4/1-8
-
Ports 1-8
√
16× FE
1× GE +
1× Combo
TL-SL1218P
150
802.3af/at
Ports 1-8/9-16
Ports 1-8
Ports 1-16
-
2× Combo
TL-SL1218MP
250
802.3af/at
Ports 1-8/9-16
Ports 1-8
Ports 1-16
-
24× FE
2× Combo
TL-SL1226P
250
802.3af/at
Ports 1-8/9-16/17-24
Ports 1-8
Ports 1-24
-
Smart
24× FE
2× GE +
2× Combo
TL-SL2428P
250
802.3af/at
Extend Mode achieves long-distance transmission by limiting the maximum port speed to 10 Mbps.
Priority and Isolation Mode can be realized through QoS and VLAN functions.
-
Demands for PoE switches are expected to significantly expand over the coming years. TP-Link has been developing different kinds of PoE switches to meet the needs of different scenarios. A wide range of 100 Mbps, gigabit, and multi-gig PoE products provide more flexible deployment and cost-effective options for fixed devices like IP cameras, access points, and IP phones. TP-Link has been dedicated to developing products that people need, and the PoE switches are always ready to give you a more convenient experience. Tell us your needs and leave the rest to us.
Find more information on the TP-Link PoE switches page.
†PoE budget calculations and line loss are based on laboratory testing. The actual PoE power budget is not guaranteed and will vary as a result of client limitations and environmental factors.
‡ Actual bandwidth may vary due to different types of cameras.
*Zero-Touch Provisioning requires the use of the Omada Cloud-Based Controller.
**Not all PoE Switches support this feature. Please refer to the product pages for details.
More information: https://www.tp-link.com/solution/poe/
Contact: [email protected]
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