MAZeT has introduced its Jencolor MMCS6 family of multiple colour sensors, bridging the gap between three-range sensors and other spectral measurement devices. The new MMCS6 product family is based on the proven technologies of compact and cost effective semiconductor sensors with integrated interference filters. The device allows seven spectral characteristics in the range of 380 to 780nm to be taken on the basis of spectral estimation.
The company states that colour evaluation by this sensor is based not on colorimetry, but on the radiometric level. The initial result is not the chromaticity coordinate, but the spectrum of a colour, which can be then used to calculate the chromaticity coordinate. The advantages of such measurements, says the company, lie in the much higher information density in terms of colour measurement.
With RGB and true colour sensors, MAZeT offers semiconductor-based sensors with RGB or XYZ interference filters for fast and long-term stable colour detection and absolute colour measurement to the CIE/DIN5033 standard. For these sensors, in connection with white-light LEDs, accuracies in the colour space that exceed the capacity of the human eye are possible. The accuracy is very heavily determined by the type of light source and the calibration of the sensors. In applications with non-standard light sources and/or higher standards for colour accuracy, the principle of the three-element colour sensors runs up against natural limitations. For such applications, spectral sensor technologies that use a spectral resolution are recommended. Typical examples of these include spectrometers at resolutions such as those used in laboratory measuring instruments but also to some extent an OEM spectrometer in in-line measurements. For sensor applications, however, such spectrometers are too slow, too expensive and usually too big.
The MMCS6 sensor allows metamerism effects to be recognised and filtered out - something that cannot be done with RGB or XYZ sensors. Metamerism, in the optical sense, refers to various spectra that produce the same impression on the human eye for a certain type of light.
The spectral characteristics of the MMCS sensors are arranged in such a way that their border areas overlap. It follows that only as few gaps as possible exist in the visible spectrum. Misleading interpretation of the colours is thus minimised and the measurement accuracy increased. The sensor operates largely independent of the quality of the light sources. Through the spectral approximation of the measured colour using MMCS sensors, colour differences to which the human eye does not respond can be determined even there.