Fast and Low Power Camera 1

[mudandsnow]

Hi Everyone,
I am working on a camera that needs to have very long battery life but also is able to take a picture less than 1 second after motion detection.

Sleeping current draw: < 1 mA
Trigger speed: < 1 second
Lighting: daylight or IR flash (for night time)
Resolution: 1MP to 5MP

I would like to start with a ready made module like the ArduCam or Pi NoIr but neither meets the requirements so I might jump right to my own design if I can't find a better module.

So far, everything I look at uses too much power to be left on but takes too long to boot to be normally sleeping.

Does anyone know of any camera modules that might meet these requirements, or good places to learn about image sensors (how to control them and store their pictures on an SD card)?

I think what I want is:
When power turned on: MCU initializes image sensor and then MCU goes to sleep, image sensor stays on.
When motion detect: MCU wakes up and triggers image sensor. Image sensor does white balance etc, captures image and sends to MCU. MCU stores picture on SD card then goes back to sleep.

Does that sound right? Is there anything else I should consider? I've heard some image sensors take over a second to initialize which is why I propose leaving image sensor on and initialized.

Thanks for any help.

 

[tecnolugo]

Mudandsnow, how many hours do you cosider very long battery life?

 

[mudandsnow]

Battery life goal is 3 to 12 months while taking 40 day pictures and 40 night pictures per day, on 6 X AA batteries.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Greater battery capacity an option? Does it have to be 6 AA's or would an alkaline air long life cell be just as reasonable of a solution? Readily available, as used in lighted traffic barricades, telcom, etc.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[mudandsnow]

Thank you for the suggestion but the client wants it to be very easy for non-techy people so we have to use common batteries. There are similar products on the market that meet those power requirements so it must be possible.