Pike Technical Manual
V5.2.0
36
FireWire
Why use FireWire?
Digital cameras with on-board
FireWire
(IEEE 1394a or 1394b) communications
conforming to the IIDC standard (V1.3 or V1.31) have created cost-effective and
powerful solutions options being used for thousands of different applications
around the world.
FireWire
is currently the premier robust digital interface for
industrial applications for many reasons, including:
•
Guaranteed bandwidth features to ensure fail-safe communications
•
Interoperability with multiple different camera types and vendors
•
Diverse camera powering options, including single-cable solutions up to
45 W
•
Effective multiple-camera solutions
•
Large variety of
FireWire
accessories for industrial applications
•
Availability of repeaters and optical fibre cabling
•
Forward and backward compatibility blending 1394a and 1394b
•
Both real-time (isochronous) and demand-driven asynchronous data
transmission capabilities
FireWire in detail
Serial bus
FireWire
is a very effective way to utilize a low-cost serial bus, through a stan-
dardized communications protocol, that establishes packetized data transfer
between two or more devices. FireWire offers real time isochronous bandwidth
for image transfer with guaranteed low latency. It also offers asynchronous data
transfer for controlling camera parameters on the fly, such as gain and shutter.
As illustrated in the diagram below, these two modes can co-exist by using pri-
ority time slots for video data transfer and the remaining time slots for control
data transfer.
Figure 2: 1394a data transmission
