Firm uses Impulse C to create passenger-counting chip

SAN FRANCISCO—Impulse Accelerated Technologies announced last week that Hella Aglaia Mobile Vision GmbH has completed a design for a computer vision 3-D automatic passenger counting system using Impulse tools and Xilinx FPGAs in an ASIC prototyping flow.

Based on 3D- Sense Technology, Hella Aglaia's self contained Automatic Passenger Counting System AVC 1 offers a counting accuracy greater than 98 percent, according to the firm. The AVC1 can be used in any environment which offers a flexible installation height and a minimum distance to passengers of 10 centimeters, the company said.

"About half of the Impulse C to FPGA users are developing video and image processing applications with our tool set," said David Buechner, a vice president at Impulse (Kirkland, Wash.), in a statement. "National security operations, automotive suppliers, and vision systems developers are using Impulse C design methods to help process very large, sometimes overwhelming amounts of incoming video data from multiple sources."

Hella Aglaia has been raising the standards in the development of intelligent visual sensor systems since 1998, according to the firm. The company is a subsidiary of automotive supplier Hella KGaA Hueck & Co. Its goal is to transfer its automotive solutions with their functional and qualitative level to other industry sectors—especially public transportation and facility management.