Study reveals challenges ahead for GigE Vision

The study warns that, because of the lack of support for real-time communication within the standard, GigE Vision systems may not in practice deliver all of the benefits and performance enhancements that designers expect. Moreover, the low-level nature of the standard means that GigE hardware is more difficult to integrate, more difficult to optimise, and exhibits restricted interoperability between vendors.



“The lack of fundamental quality of service (QoS) features is a major drawback when dealing with real-time data such as video,” said Arnaud Destruels, Marketing Manager, Machine Vision Products, Sony ISS. “Although more mature systems such as IEEE1394 offer lower raw data rates, they provide guaranteed bandwidth ‘baked in’ to the standard. Just as importantly, GigE Vision is handicapped by the lack of high-level API functionality: not only does this impair interoperability, it also means that integrators need to fine-tune low-level parameters to achieve acceptable performance.”



GigE Vision offers a number of attractive features, including long cable runs, high data rates, and potential cost benefits from the use of mainstream computer networking technology. However, the white paper concludes that the standard needs to evolve and develop before truly delivering on this theoretical promise. In addition to the QoS and ease-of-use issues, it points out that multi-camera GigE Vision systems are challenge to implement; and that the use of Ethernet technology imposes a significant load on the system host processor.



The Sony whitepaper “Can GigE Vision deliver on its promise?” is available now from Sony’s Image Sensing Solutions division.