CHEETAH is the first IMPERX high performance CMOS product line intended not only for machine vision, but also surveillance, reconnaissance, aerospace and intelligent traffic systems. These cameras have very fast frame rates, high resolution, low noise, wide dynamic range, excellent near-infrared sensitivity, and an extremely flexible architecture so one camera can do multiple jobs (for example, a low resolution video camera and a high resolution still camera). Cheetah cameras incorporate smart wide dynamic range technology which monitors each pixels exposure and sets the exposure to one of three user selectable values based on the intensity of the source at the pixel. CMOS technology eliminates smear columns from areas of ultra-bright intensity and specular reflections in uncontrolled lighting applications.