Design and Development of Minilink Video: A Fiber-Optic Coupled Video System
Abstract:
This report documents the in-house design, construction and testing of a battery powered video camera which transmits its signal along a fiber-optic cable to the monitoring station. Certain types of testing require that a video camera be placed in close proximity to the test article, which results in the camera being subjected to the full force of the test environment, which often impairs its performance or causes it to fail entirely. In commercially available units, power and video cables which connect to the camera pose an electric shock hazard in some tests and can be a source of unwanted pickup of electromagnetic fields. The necessity for in-house design of this system was realized after a survey showed that no one manufacturer offers a system meeting all of the requirements for video monitoring. Because of these factors, a battery powered video camera which transmits its signal along a fiber-optic cable to the monitoring station has been designed in-house. The experimental version of this camera proved to be resistant to the environment, provided better contrast, higher resolution, and greater capability of operation at low light levels. This unit was successful for its intended purpose, and is a generally useful device with no changes. Future plans are to further extend the experimental design of the system to allow test monitoring with greater efficiency while yielding superior images.