Vadzo Imaging, a provider of embedded vision cameras for device manufacturers, has validated near-infrared sensitivity in its Merlin-662CRS, a compact 2-megapixel USB camera module aimed at the fast-growing market for machines that need to see in the dark.
The product is not a consumer camera.
It is a component sold to the engineers and manufacturers who build the surveillance systems, warehouse robots, facial recognition terminals, and smart-city sensors that have become a significant and growing slice of industrial technology spending.
Devices need visible light
A growing number of devices need to operate where visible light is absent, restricted, or deliberately avoided.
Warehouse robots run overnight in unlit aisles, perimeter security systems cannot flood neighbourhoods with floodlighting, and face authentication terminals have to work equally well in bright lobbies and dark corridors.
The standard solution is to illuminate scenes with near-infrared (NIR) LEDs, which are invisible to the human eye, but most general-purpose camera sensors respond poorly to that light, forcing engineers into an uncomfortable set of trade-offs.
Raising LED power increases heat and cost, lengthening the exposure blurs anything that moves, and cranking up gain introduces noise that degrades the image quality that recognition software depends on.
Each workaround either inflates the bill of materials or degrades the product.
Sony sensor
The Merlin-662CRS is built on Sony's STARVIS 2 IMX662 sensor, a back-illuminated 1080p chip that retains meaningful sensitivity at the 850 and 940 nanometre wavelengths used by standard NIR illuminators.
That means the camera converts more of the light already being emitted into usable signal, allowing device makers to run LEDs at lower power, use shorter exposures, or reduce gain, and often some combination of all three.
The sensor also supports high dynamic range (HDR) capture, which matters because near-infrared illuminators create hot-spots and reflections on glossy surfaces, glasses, and metalwork that can overwhelm nearby detail in a single-exposure image.
A $6bn market
Vadzo sells the module into several sectors that share a common characteristic: they are all scaling fast.
The global AGV market is valued at $6 billion in 2026 and growing at 10.6% a year, driven by e-commerce fulfillment and warehouse automation investment, with autonomous guided vehicles increasingly requiring reliable vision systems that operate through the night shift without visible lighting.
The surveillance technology market hit $191 billion in 2026, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 10.6%, with smart-city camera rollouts, AI-integrated security, and biometric access control among the primary growth drivers.
The face recognition camera market alone is valued at $11 billion in 2026 and is growing at nearly 8% annually, with more than 420 smart-city projects globally having integrated biometric surveillance systems.
Each of those end markets needs exactly what the Merlin-662CRS provides: a compact, USB-connected, low-power camera that works reliably under its own invisible illumination.
No minimum order required
Vadzo's model is to sell evaluation kits with no minimum order requirement, lowering the barrier for OEM customers to test and qualify the module, and then to follow those customers into production volumes.
The company supports customers across hardware customisation, firmware development, and lens selection, which creates the kind of ongoing technical relationship that generates repeat orders rather than one-off transactions.
Alwin Vincent, Vadzo's product manager, said the validation was designed to stop customers encountering weak NIR response after hardware is already built, a discovery that forces expensive late-stage redesigns of illuminators, lenses, and enclosures.
The Merlin-662CRS is available now for evaluation and production orders.
