Camera interface for nRF52840

[Batuhan]

Hello,

I would like to take a photo and send it via Zigbee to another on nRF52840. Just a single image that is around 600x480 sizes. What interfaces can I use for that purpose? There is no MIPI CSI-2 or DVP. Time delay and colors are not priorities.

Additionally, could you recommend any camera module for an embedded system?

Thank you.

[Dmitry]

Hi,

you can take a look at OV2640 - it's a cheap sensor with hardware jpeg compressor (it will come handy when sending an image over a slow link).

nRF52840 has no CSI, neither any DMA-controlled parallel interfaces, so you need a camera module with internal frame buffer and SPI interface (ArduCAM is what I know about).

Edit:  here is a demo project for 52840 with ArduCAM.

[Batuhan]

Thank you for your well-informed comment,

Am I  able to use just a converter from CMOS parallel to SPI without using a module, to decrease producing price? with just a converter IC. I do not know whether it is possible. 

[Dmitry]

Camera videoport is a master device - you need to synchronize nRF with PCLK coming from sensor. I cannot imagine a simple solution to convert videoport signal to SPI, maybe some small FPGA.
If you'll find a way to configure OV2640 for low-frequency PCLK (1-2 MHz), you can try bit-banging method as awneil suggested. In this case, you need to disable interrupts completely for the whole time of receiving frame data, it's hard to say whether ZigBee stack will survive after that.