AI Bullet 5 MP Motorised Zoom
A 5 MP AI bullet with a 5× motorised zoom — 2.7 mm to 13.5 mm — letting one camera switch between wide-area overview and narrow-field detail under operator or scheduled control. F1.4 P-Iris holds the exposure steady across the zoom range; 50 m smart IR for night-time work. Same multi-tail single-cable install as the rest of the AI Bullet range, same SenseView integration, fully NDAA-eligible.
When one fixed field of view isn't enough.
A fixed-lens bullet covers what it's pointed at and nothing else. For most installations that's fine — a junction approach is a junction approach. Some scenes need flexibility: a school zone that's a pedestrian-counting target at school-run time and a wide-area security camera the rest of the day; a town-square camera that follows an event into a side street; a car-park entrance that zooms onto plates when the operator needs.
The CA-1040's 5× motorised zoom solves that without sending a technician up the column. Operators or scheduled rules drive the focal length from 2.7 mm wide (99° H-FoV) to 13.5 mm narrow (≈ 22°) — and the P-Iris keeps the exposure consistent across the zoom range so the AI never sees a step change in image conditions.
Wide-area to plate-readable, on demand.
Single fixed mount, single multi-tail cable. Motorised zoom and focus driven over ONVIF or a NOW Wireless preset workflow. F1.4 P-Iris adjusts the aperture for exposure across the zoom range. 50 m smart IR engages automatically below 0.008 lux. Multi-tail cable carries Ethernet, DC, alarm I/O and audio I/O.
- Sensor
- 5 MP
- Zoom
- 2.7–13.5 mm
- Min lux
- 0.008
- View angle
- 99° → 22°
- IR reach
- 50 m
What the hardware does.
5× optical zoom under live or scheduled control
The lens drives from 2.7 mm to 13.5 mm in seconds. The wider end gives a 99° horizontal field of view — close to fixed-bullet coverage. The narrow end concentrates the same 5 megapixels onto a small slice of the scene — enough pixels per metre for ANPR-grade plate work in good light. P-Iris keeps the exposure right at every focal length so the AI classifier doesn't see a step change in image conditions.
Zoom and focus are driven over ONVIF or a NOW Wireless preset workflow — operators set a position from the control room, or rules trigger presets on a SenseView event.
Coverage varies — wide overview or narrow detail
At 2.7 mm and a typical 6 m lamp-column mount the camera sees roughly 14 m wide — a 4-lane carriageway with footways. At 6 mm it tightens onto a single-lane stop-line view. At 13.5 mm the field at 6 m distance is about 2.5 m wide — enough pixels per metre to read a number plate in good light. Two cameras' worth of coverage from one install, switched in software.
Smart IR adjusts with zoom
The 50 m smart IR illuminator tracks the zoom level. At the wide focal length the IR floods a 4-lane carriageway; at the narrow focal length the illumination tightens to match the field of view — avoiding overexposed plates and giving consistent contrast across the frame. The 850 nm IR is invisible to drivers and pedestrians.
Warm-white supplement is disabled by policy across the NOW Wireless range to avoid blinding motorists.
Three ways to deploy this camera.
The CA-1040 supports all three deployment modes. Mode A handles evidential capture, Mode B uses the on-camera AI for low-bandwidth alerting, and Mode C passes the full video stream to a NOW Wireless AI box for heavier classifiers. Most installations combine more than one.
Capture & stream
Camera publishes live 5 MP video at the current zoom level. Local storage on microSD, central NVR, roadside cabinet or cloud. No AI inference — pure capture and stream.
Smart events → SenseView
The camera runs vehicle, person and cyclist detection on-board. Line cross, region entry / exit, loitering and object-left / removed alerts publish to SenseView over standard event channels at a small fraction of full-video bandwidth.
Video → AI box → SenseView
Full video stream to an Nvidia-based AI box in the roadside cabinet, control room or cloud. The AI box runs the heavy classifiers — DVLA cross-reference, journey-time, plate enrolment — and feeds SenseView. Full feature set available.
What the AI platform adds.
The camera delivers clean colour video. SenseView turns that video stream into classified, queryable, evidential data — running at the edge on a NOW Wireless AI box, or centrally on the SenseView server. The CA-1040 is built to feed these workflows.
Traffic
- Counting and classification — vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians on roads, cycleways and pavements
- ANPR with DVLA cross-reference — type, licence, MOT, emissions, fuel, weight, year, engine
- Journey times and tracking — Bluetooth + ANPR, journey-time, start/end, Anywhere-to-Anywhere
- Turn analysis, desire lines, junction analysis
- Virtual loops — overhead detectors replacing in-road inductive loops without roadworks
- Queue detection with UTC/UTMC alert outputs
- Pedestrian-crossing automation — predictive activation
- Cross-city tracking — passive Bluetooth Digital Signatures + ANPR
Security
- Centralised CCTV management — multi-camera split-screen, PTZ control
- Multi-tier storage — on-camera SD, control-room NVR, cloud
- Facial recognition — face capture, identification, automated action
- Anti-social-behaviour and intrusion alerts
- Line crossing, region entry / exit, loitering, object-left / object-removed
Parking
- Free-space mapping — indoor and outdoor lots
- Indoor parking management — AI + camera, ANPR registration with time and plate
- On-street parking — illegal parking, paid-stay overstays, ANPR-driven enforcement
- Integration — forwards data to existing parking management systems
Cross-cutting capabilities
Real-time API and CSV export · DVLA cross-reference · GDPR-compliant data hashing · IoT integration via LoRa, Wi-Fi, Mesh or Ethernet · Air quality (NO₂, particles) and weather data sources · Google Journey Time integration (subscription required)
Typical applications.
Where the CA-1040 fits, mapped to the three buyer groups. Its strength is variable scene scale — wherever one fixed field of view isn't enough.
Traffic
- Single-camera multi-mode — wide for counting, narrow for plate work
- School zones — pedestrian counting at school-run, security overview otherwise
- Junction approach overview that can zoom to incident on demand
- Operator-driven detail capture for evidential review
- Roadworks and event sites — coverage adapts to changing scene scale
Security
- Town-square monitoring with operator-driven zoom on incidents
- Council CCTV operator workflow — wide overview, zoom to investigate
- Public realm with mixed scene scales — high street and side streets
- Heritage and event sites — adapt focal length to scene scale
- Anti-social-behaviour follow-through with operator-controlled detail
Parking
- Entrance lane — wide for approach, zoom to read plate at gantry
- On-street parking with mixed-bay layouts — variable coverage
- Car-park bay rows — zoom to read individual permits or plates
- Operator-driven detail capture for enforcement evidence
- Multi-purpose lot cameras — overview at rest, zoom on event
Full technical specification.
The complete specification — sensor, optics, video pipeline, on-camera AI, network, storage, power, environmental and mechanical. Use this in place of a separate datasheet.
Imaging
- Image sensor
- 1/2.8″ progressive-scan CMOS
- Resolution
- 5 MP (2592 × 1944)
- Frame rate
- 25 fps PAL (main); 25 fps (sub)
- Min. illumination
- 0.008 lux @ F1.4 colour; 0 lux with IR on
- Shutter time
- 1/3 s to 1/100 000 s
- Day / night
- Mechanical ICR — true day/night switch
- WDR
- 120 dB true WDR
- 3D DNR
- Yes
- BLC / HLC / Defog
- Yes
- White balance
- Auto / Manual / Indoor / Outdoor
- Image rotation
- 0° / 90° / 180° / 270°
- Illumination
- 50 m smart 850 nm IR (zoom-matched). Warm-white supplement disabled by NW policy.
Lens
- Focal length
- 2.7 – 13.5 mm motorised (5× optical)
- Aperture
- F1.4 P-Iris (precision iris)
- Sensor format
- 1/2.8″
- Horizontal FoV
- 99° wide → 22° narrow
- Vertical FoV
- ≈ 52° wide → ≈ 12° narrow
- Zoom and focus drive
- Motorised — controlled via ONVIF or SenseView presets
- IR cut filter
- Mechanical ICR
- Lens mount
- Integrated
Coverage at 6 m mount
- 2.7 mm (wide)
- ≈ 14 m wide — 4-lane carriageway with footways
- 6 mm (mid)
- ≈ 6 m wide — single-lane / stop-line view
- 13.5 mm (narrow)
- ≈ 2.5 m wide at 6 m distance — plate-readable
- Coverage assumption
- Level ground plane, horizontal mount, 99° → 22° H-FoV
Video
- Compression
- H.265+ / H.265 / H.264+ / H.264 / MJPEG
- Smart codec
- Yes — smart H.265+
- Bitrate
- 32 Kbps to 16 Mbps, CBR / VBR
- Streams
- Multi-stream — main 5 MP @ 25 fps, sub 1080p, tertiary 720p
- ROI
- Configurable zones, per-stream
- Privacy masking
- Up to 8 zones
Audio
- Microphone
- Built-in
- Audio compression
- G.711 / G.722 / G.726 / AAC
- Audio bitrate
- 64 Kbps
- External audio I/O
- 1 in / 1 out (3.5 mm)
AI & events (on-camera)
- On-camera detection
- Vehicle, person and cyclist classification
- Smart events
- Line crossing, region entry / exit, loitering, object-left, object-removed, tamper
- People counting
- Standard and advanced (entry / exit, U-turn, queue)
- Heat map
- Yes
- Smart motion
- Yes — with vehicle / human classification
- Event streaming
- ONVIF event channels and extended vendor event API
- Heavy classifiers
- DVLA cross-reference, journey-time and plate enrolment performed by SenseView or NW AI box (Mode B or C)
Network
- Interface
- 1 × RJ45 10/100 Mbps
- Protocols
- TCP/IP · ICMP · HTTP · HTTPS · FTP · DHCP · DNS · DDNS · RTP · RTSP · RTCP · NTP · SMTP · IGMP · 802.1X · QoS · IPv4 · IPv6
- ONVIF
- Profile S, T, G, M
- API
- RTSP streaming · ONVIF · REST
- Authentication
- Digest · basic
- Encryption
- HTTPS · SSL/TLS · AES · IEEE 802.1X
Storage
- On-camera
- microSD slot, up to 256 GB
- External
- NAS via NFS / SMB
- NVR
- Standard NVR over ONVIF
- SenseView
- Control-room or cloud storage tier
Power
- PoE
- 802.3at Class 4 (max 25.5 W)
- DC input
- 12 V DC ± 10%
- Typical consumption
- ≈ 10 W (IR off); ≈ 14 W (IR on)
- NW inline adapter
- Optional 24 V Passive PoE → 12 V DC for long cable runs
Environmental
- Operating temperature
- −30 °C to +60 °C
- Storage temperature
- −40 °C to +70 °C
- Operating humidity
- 0 – 95 % (non-condensing)
- Weather rating
- IP67
- Impact rating
- IK10 — vandal-impact resistant
Mechanical
- Dimensions
- ≈ 240 mm length
- Weight
- ≈ 0.83 kg (camera body)
- Housing
- Aluminium alloy with integrated sun-shield
- Colour
- White
- Mounting
- Pendant · wall · ceiling — via external junction box (NW supplied)
- Cable
- Multi-tail — Ethernet, DC, alarm I/O, audio I/O
Compliance & certifications
- CE
- EMC · LVD · RoHS
- FCC
- Class A
- IEC
- 62676 (CCTV systems)
- Procurement
- NDAA-eligible — suitable for police, government and NDAA-restricted procurement
Ready to specify the CA-1040?
Talk to our technical team about coverage planning, motorised zoom presets, SenseView integration and mixed-camera deployment design.