Design Article
Embedded vision: FPGAs’ next technology opportunity
Brian Dipert, Embedded Vision Alliance, José Alvarez, Xilinx, and Mihran Touriguian, Berkeley Design Technology, Inc.
7/2/2012 10:56 AM EDT
Sidebar: EMBEDDED VISION ALLIANCE SEES SUCCESS
Embedded vision technology has the potential to enable a wide range of electronic products that are more intelligent and responsive than before, and thus more valuable to users. It can add helpful features to existing products. And it can provide significant new markets for hardware, software and semiconductor manufacturers. The Embedded Vision Alliance, a unified worldwide organization of technology developers and providers, will transform this potential into reality in a rich, rapid and efficient manner.
The alliance has developed a full-featured website, freely accessible to all and including (among other things) articles, videos, a daily news portal and a multi-subject discussion forum staffed by a diversity of technology experts. Registered website users can receive the alliance’s monthly e-mail newsletter; they also gain access to the Embedded Vision Academy, containing numerous tutorial presentations, technical papers and file downloads, intended to enable new players in the embedded vision application space to rapidly ramp up their expertise.
Other envisioned future aspects of the alliance’s charter may include:
• The incorporation, and commercialization, of technology breakthroughs originating in universities and research laboratories around the world,
• The codification of hardware, semiconductor and software standards that will accelerate new technology adoption by eliminating the confusion and inefficiency of numerous redundant implementation alternatives,
• Development of robust benchmarks to enable clear and comprehensive evaluation and selection of various embedded vision system building blocks, such as processors and software algorithms, and
• The proliferation of hardware and software reference designs, emulators and other development aids that will enable component suppliers, systems implementers and end customers to develop and select products that optimally meet unique application needs.
For more information, please visit www.embedded-vision.com. Contact the Embedded Vision Alliance at info@embedded-vision.com and (510) 451-1800. – Brian Dipert
About the authors:
Brian Dipert, Editor-In-Chief, Embedded Vision Alliance.
dipert@embedded-vision.com
José Alvarez, Engineering Director, Video Technology, Xilinx, Inc.
jose.alvarez@xilinx.com
Mihran Touriguian, Senior DSP Engineer, BDTI (Berkeley Design Technology, Inc.)
touriguian@bdti.com
----------------------
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Embedded vision technology has the potential to enable a wide range of electronic products that are more intelligent and responsive than before, and thus more valuable to users. It can add helpful features to existing products. And it can provide significant new markets for hardware, software and semiconductor manufacturers. The Embedded Vision Alliance, a unified worldwide organization of technology developers and providers, will transform this potential into reality in a rich, rapid and efficient manner.
The alliance has developed a full-featured website, freely accessible to all and including (among other things) articles, videos, a daily news portal and a multi-subject discussion forum staffed by a diversity of technology experts. Registered website users can receive the alliance’s monthly e-mail newsletter; they also gain access to the Embedded Vision Academy, containing numerous tutorial presentations, technical papers and file downloads, intended to enable new players in the embedded vision application space to rapidly ramp up their expertise.
Other envisioned future aspects of the alliance’s charter may include:
• The incorporation, and commercialization, of technology breakthroughs originating in universities and research laboratories around the world,
• The codification of hardware, semiconductor and software standards that will accelerate new technology adoption by eliminating the confusion and inefficiency of numerous redundant implementation alternatives,
• Development of robust benchmarks to enable clear and comprehensive evaluation and selection of various embedded vision system building blocks, such as processors and software algorithms, and
• The proliferation of hardware and software reference designs, emulators and other development aids that will enable component suppliers, systems implementers and end customers to develop and select products that optimally meet unique application needs.
For more information, please visit www.embedded-vision.com. Contact the Embedded Vision Alliance at info@embedded-vision.com and (510) 451-1800. – Brian Dipert
About the authors:
Brian Dipert, Editor-In-Chief, Embedded Vision Alliance.
dipert@embedded-vision.com
José Alvarez, Engineering Director, Video Technology, Xilinx, Inc.
jose.alvarez@xilinx.com
Mihran Touriguian, Senior DSP Engineer, BDTI (Berkeley Design Technology, Inc.)
touriguian@bdti.com
----------------------
If you found this article to be of interest, visit Military/Aerospace Designline where you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of military, defense and aerospace. And, to register to our weekly newsletter, click here.
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mkr
7/5/2012 7:36 AM EDT
There surely is a lot of applications where embedded vision can really shine. I come from the academia, where I'm working mainly on vision for mobile robotic and surveillance applications. In the field of robotics, the dominant trend is to pack the machine with a PC and let it handle all the algorithmic heavy lifting. There are however emerging applications where using a PC as we know it is a dealbreaker - think UAVs. As for surveillance - at present the dominant paradigm is centralized processing, using some server or even a server cluster. The image data from cameras has to be transfered for processing, putting a large pressure on the communication infrastructure. Sometimes the constraints presented by the communication infrastructure are a brick wall - a complete system redesign is necessary to top over it (or go around it). A natureal solution to this problem is in-place processing.
Programmable logic really shines when it comes to processing of local image information, e.g. using the sliding window approach. Our stream processors for image filtering and feature detection and matching can crunch hundreds of VGA frames per second. Combine it with a nice, low power embedded processor and you get a system for (almost) every job. And with Zynq, you get it all in one package. The only problem is that the development is significantly more complicated than it is the case with pure software designs.
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Dr DSP
7/10/2012 5:44 PM EDT
The topic of multi-camera analytics perhaps deserves some additional discussion. It should be possible to combine multiple views from multiple cameras to more precisely determine acceleration, relative position, and object characteristics (a 'person' in a sign vs. a real 3D person). Any features that support these requirements?
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anne-francoise.pele
7/16/2012 11:25 AM EDT
Do not hesitate to tell us about your real-world experiences, your on-going projects your achievements, etc. in the field of embedded vision.
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