“A dedicated processing unit for neural algorithms that is supported by open source AI software solutions such as TensorFlow is an efficiency accelerator for many vision based systems. And when all this is integrated as an application ready, hardware and software validated platform including Basler pylon Camera Software Suite, it puts developers on a fast track to designing NPU accelerated smart vision applications,” explains Martin Danzer, Director Product Management at congatec.
The Basler pylon Camera Software Suite delivers a unified SDK for BCON for MIPI, USB3 vision and GigE vision cameras, and enables camera access from source code, GUI or 3rd party software. The high-performance pylon viewer is perfect for camera evaluation. Thanks to integration in the congatec i.MX 8M Plus starter set for AI accelerated vision applications, engineers get instant access to important AI supported machine vision features such as triggering, individual image capture, and highly differentiated camera configuration options plus easy access to customized inference algorithms on the basis of the Arm NN and TensorFlow Lite ecosystem.
The feature set in detail
The new starter set for AI accelerated vision applications contains the entire ecosystem developers need to instantly start designing applications on the basis of this next-generation platform, which offers highly efficient vision and AI integration. At the heart of the set is the new SMARC 2.1 Computer-on-Module conga-SMX8-Plus. It features 4 powerful Arm Cortex-A53 cores, 1x Arm Cortex-M72 controller and the NXP NPU to accelerate deep learning algorithms and comes with passive cooling. The 3.5 inch carrier board conga-SMC1/SMARC-ARM directly connects the 13 MP Basler dart daA4200-30mci BCON for MIPI camera with an F1.8 f4mm lens via MIPI CSI-2.0 without any additional converter modules. Next to MIPI CSI-2.0, USB and GigE vision cameras are also supported. On the software side, congatec provides a bootable SD card with preconfigured boot loader, Yocto OS image, matching BSPs, and processor-optimized Basler embedded vision software enabling immediate AI inference training on the basis of captured images and video sequences.
Further information on congatec’s ecosystem for i.MX 8 based designs can be found at: https://www.congatec.com/imx8
congatec will be presenting its comprehensive ecosystem for the i.MX 8 processor range at the virtual NXP Technology Days from June 8 to June 30: https://www.nxp.com/design/training/nxp-technology-days/nxp-technology-days-connectivity:NXP-TECHNOLOGY-DAYS-CONNECTIVITY