CenturyArks is a technology-driven company founded by a group of engineers passionate about Monozukuri, the Japanese philosophy of craftsmanship and advanced manufacturing. The company focuses on developing innovative solutions in the fields of high-performance camera modules and wearable optical devices.
By combining strong engineering expertise with a commitment to precision manufacturing, CenturyArks works on cutting-edge product planning and technological development. Its goal is to deliver high-quality optical and imaging solutions that meet the evolving needs of modern industries.
Operating with a global perspective, the company leverages its accumulated technical knowledge to respond to diverse business requirements from partners and clients worldwide. CenturyArks supports business expansion, contributes to the creation of new technologies and applications, and seeks to promote environmentally responsible innovation.
Through its dedication to Monozukuri and customer-focused development, CenturyArks aims to provide practical solutions to complex challenges while creating real value for its clients. At the same time, the company strives to contribute to the creative progress of society.
With a strong emphasis on collaboration, technical excellence, and customer satisfaction, CenturyArks continues to build trust with its partners and pursue sustainable growth in advanced optical technology.
What are the primary performance characteristics that distinguish your product/solution from competing offerings in your segment?
We offer the “SilkyEvCam®” series of event-based vision cameras, which combine our long-established development and manufacturing technologies for compact, high-performance camera modules with cutting-edge image sensing technology.
While conventional frame-based cameras capture information from the entire screen as a “picture” at regular intervals, this product captures only changes in brightness on a per-pixel basis and asynchronously outputs the coordinates of the changed pixels, the direction of the brightness change, and a timestamp in 1-microsecond increments. As a result, the camera’s output is a point cloud rather than a “picture.”
This unique sensing method enables the capture of high-speed changes and phenomena—previously unobservable with conventional cameras—in environments ranging from low light to direct sunlight, thereby significantly transforming our perception of the world.
SilkyEvCam Products:
- Camera: SilkyEvCam VGA/HD/HD Lite
- Camera Module: GenX320 4×5/HD Module
- Event and frame-based hybrid camera: BothView®
- Edge AI Area Monitoring & Analysis IoT Box: EdgeBX®
Which technological innovations or features give your solution a competitive advantage in industrial applications?
At the core of our differentiation is the Event-Based Vision Sensor (EVS), which captures only changes in light brightness that exceed a threshold set on a per-pixel basis.
An “event” refers not only to a change in light brightness but also to its location (coordinates), direction of change, and timestamp, all of which are output asynchronously.
When people or objects move, changes in brightness occur. As a result, the sensor excels at detecting moving objects and can capture high-speed, subtle changes that were difficult to detect with conventional methods.
Furthermore, with a minimum temporal resolution of 1 µsec and a wide dynamic range (>120 dB), it is less susceptible to the influence of the subject’s illuminance, enabling stable, high-speed, and wide-dynamic-range sensing for industrial applications.
How does your product address reliability, durability, and lifecycle performance compared to industry standards?
Our products incorporate event sensors from a leading Japanese manufacturer that drives the global image sensor industry, as well as from Prophesee, a pioneer in event-based technology, ensuring high reliability.
Furthermore, we are the only company in Japan engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of event cameras, and all our event camera products are manufactured at affiliated factories within Japan. This allows us to establish a stable manufacturing system under strict quality control.
Through these efforts, our products deliver the environmental performance, high durability, and long-term stable operation required for industrial applications worldwide. They are CE and RoHS compliant and provide reliable performance throughout the entire product lifecycle.
What role do efficiency metrics (e.g., energy consumption, throughput, precision) play in differentiating your solution?
Our solution employs event-based cameras equipped with an extremely efficient sensing method that detects only changes in light brightness exceeding a set threshold. Furthermore, since coordinate and timestamp information is output asynchronously, no data is generated when there are no changes in brightness, significantly reducing data volume. This achieves low power consumption while also reducing the burden of post-capture data processing, contributing to improved overall system efficiency.
Furthermore, with its wide dynamic range, it enables stable sensing in environments ranging from low to high illumination.
Furthermore, in low-light environments, additional lighting may not be required in some cases, contributing to reduced energy consumption and operational costs for the entire system.
Furthermore, the GenX320 4×5, an ultra-compact camera module, features multiple power modes; by transitioning to sleep mode when there is no movement for a certain period, further improvements in energy efficiency can be expected.
In addition, Prophesee’s Metavision® SDK (Paid) software toolkit provides various algorithms and development environments for efficiently handling event data.
How does your solution integrate with existing systems, platforms, or Industry 4.0 environments (e.g., IoT, automation, data analytics)?
Our solution is highly compatible with edge data processing and AI processing, making it easy to integrate into existing IoT systems and Industry 4.0 environments.
As an example, let us introduce “EdgeBX®,” an edge device that integrates an event camera with a single-board computer equipped with advanced AI algorithms. EdgeBX processes data output from the event camera in real time within the device to perform monitoring and analysis.
By combining highly efficient event data with AI technology, we perform people counting, crowd visualization (heat maps), and optical flow analysis while maintaining low data volumes, thereby supporting rapid on-site decision-making.
Furthermore, by integrating with cloud services, we enable data recording and storage, allowing you to visualize changes and characteristics of specific areas directly on your device. We are currently conducting pilot tests with software development companies and service providers in public transportation and shared spaces within facilities. If you are interested, why not join our pilot program?
What customization or scalability options do you offer to meet diverse customer requirements across industries?
Our event cameras are highly versatile. In addition to their original use in academic research, we have received numerous inquiries from industrial sectors such as manufacturing, inspection and quality control, safety management, healthcare and nursing care, and infrastructure, and their adoption is expanding.
Specific applications include the detection and analysis of fluids such as water and oil; the detection of dust, fine particles in cleanroom; water vapor, and gas leaks; bubble detection; predictive maintenance through equipment vibration monitoring; wide-area surveillance using drones; and privacy-conscious monitoring applications.
In addition to the R&D and manufacturing of event cameras, our company develops and manufactures compact, high-performance camera modules for smartphones and robotics, and provides contract development of solutions that leverage our optical and device technologies. This enables us to flexibly customize systems to meet our customers’ specific needs.
How do safety, compliance, and certification standards influence your product design and market positioning?
We design and manufacture all our products with a strong emphasis on safety and compliance with various standards (CE, RoHS, etc.).
Since our event cameras are designed to capture only changes in light, they do not display human faces or identify individuals, making them suitable for environments where privacy is a concern.
Furthermore, with our development and manufacturing capabilities in Japan, we place a strong emphasis on quality control, ensuring stable performance and reliability.
Thanks to these efforts, our solutions are recognized as reliable options for markets where safety and compliance are paramount, such as public infrastructure and the healthcare and nursing care sectors.
In what ways do your after-sales services (technical support, maintenance, training) enhance the overall value proposition of your solution?
Since event cameras are a relatively new technology, we place a strong emphasis on providing support both before and after implementation.
In Japan, we regularly hold beginner and intermediate-level event camera seminars to explain the history and underlying principles of the cameras, basic usage, and compatible software. Both domestically and internationally, we conduct individual consultations upon request to provide technical explanations and offer suggestions and advice on specific usage methods.
Additionally, depending on your desired application, we are available to consult on camera and lighting installation methods, lens selection, housing design, synchronization configurations for multiple units, and even software development.
With customer convenience in mind, we offer lens and tripod sets, accessories such as cable units for synchronizing multiple units, and evaluation boards for camera modules.
How do total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) compare with alternative solutions on the market?
Event cameras are characterized by lower implementation costs compared to high-speed cameras with equivalent sensing speeds, and they are well-suited for wide-area sensing through the installation of multiple units.
Here is an actual account from one of our users. At that user’s facility, they were operating only a single high-end high-speed camera, which resulted in queues every time an inspection or status check was needed, causing operational delays. By using multiple affordable event cameras, they were able to not only maintain constant, wide-area monitoring but also immediately activate the cameras as needed for inspections and status checks, thereby improving operational efficiency.
On the other hand, while software licenses or algorithm development may be required depending on the application, since event data captures only the necessary information, it is possible to reduce data processing loads and overall system operating costs.
As a result, the total cost—from initial implementation through ongoing operation—is optimized, and a high return on investment can be expected through the construction of an efficient system.
What feedback from customers or industry use cases best demonstrates the unique strengths of your product/solution?
We have received high praise from customers for our cameras’ ability to capture high-speed events in detail without being affected by changes in lighting conditions, as well as for their low power consumption, which enables long-term operation.
In addition, customers appreciate that our products are priced more affordably than conventional industrial cameras, such as high-speed cameras.
Furthermore, customers value not only our product lineup, which supports a wide range of applications, but also our ability to assist with application development utilizing these products.
Furthermore, our attentive support system, which extends from before purchase through to after-sales service, has received positive feedback from many customers.
Interest in event cameras is growing year by year, and the range and scope of potential applications are steadily expanding. Furthermore, an ecosystem is taking shape that involves various stakeholders, from device development and data processing to application development and even service provision. We believe that as a technology capable of offering new approaches to challenges that could not be detected by conventional cameras or systems, its potential for future utilization will continue to expand.
If you are struggling with detection or analysis that is difficult to achieve with existing methods, please feel free to contact us.
“Event cameras will fundamentally transform our perception of the world.”
