Adimec blog published a post on small pixel potential in machine vision applications: "Can small pixel CMOS image sensors be useful in Machine Vision?"
The conclusion is: "There is a trend towards using smaller pixels for machine vision applications leveraging technology developed for the high volume consumer camera applications. However the requirements for machine vision are very different and it will take some time before the image sensor pixels have high enough performance to make it into the machine vision cameras."
The conclusion is: "There is a trend towards using smaller pixels for machine vision applications leveraging technology developed for the high volume consumer camera applications. However the requirements for machine vision are very different and it will take some time before the image sensor pixels have high enough performance to make it into the machine vision cameras."