EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems

EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems Cover Image
Research Article
Open Access

Design Considerations for Scalable High-Performance Vision Systems Embedded in Industrial Print Inspection Machines

  • Johannes Fürtler1Email author,
  • Peter Rössler2,
  • Jörg Brodersen1,
  • Herbert Nachtnebel3,
  • Konrad J Mayer1,
  • Gerhard Cadek4 and
  • Christian Eckel4
EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems20072007:071794

https://doi.org/10.1155/2007/71794

©  Fürtler et al. 2007

Received: 1 May 2006

Accepted: 9 October 2006

Published: 16 January 2007

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a scalable high-performance vision system which is used in the application area of optical print inspection. The system is able to process hundreds of megabytes of image data per second coming from several high-speed/high-resolution cameras. Due to performance requirements, some functionality has been implemented on dedicated hardware based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA), which is coupled to a high-end digital signal processor (DSP). The paper discusses design considerations like partitioning of image processing algorithms between hardware and software. The main chapters focus on functionality implemented on the FPGA, including low-level image processing algorithms (flat-field correction, image pyramid generation, neighborhood operations) and advanced processing units (programmable arithmetic unit, geometry unit). Verification issues for the complex system are also addressed. The paper concludes with a summary of the FPGA resource usage and some performance results.

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Authors’ Affiliations

(1)
Business Unit of High Performance Image Processing, Austrian Research Centers Gmbh (ARC)
(2)
Department of Embedded Systems, University of Applied Sciences
(3)
Institute of Computer Technology, Vienna University of Technology
(4)
Oregano Systems – Design and Consulting GesmbH

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Copyright

© Fürtler et al. 2007

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.