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Software development kit streamlines SLAM in mobile devices

Tue, May 21, 2019

To develop simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) –enabled mobile devices, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets, robots, autonomous vehicles and drones, Ceva offers the SLAM software development kit for CEVA-XM intelligent vision DSPs and NeuPro AI processors

The kit incorporates hardware, software and interfaces that can “significantly lower the entry barrier” to integrate efficient SLAM implementations into low-power embedded systems, says Ceva.

According to Ilan Yona, vice president and general manager of the vision business unit at Ceva: “SLAM is the underlying technology that enables high-accuracy 3D mapping of a device’s surroundings”. He believes that the company’s expertise in designing vision DSPs and software algorithms will introduced customers to 3D machine vision design.

The Ceva-SLAM software development kit has a detailed interface from a CPU to offload the heavy lifting SLAM blocks to the Ceva-XM DSP. These building blocks use the DSP to support both fixed point and floating point math and extend the device’s battery life. They also include capabilities for image processing (including feature detection, feature descriptors, feature matching), linear algebra (including matrix manipulation, linear equation solving) and fast sparse equation solving for bundle adjustment. The software development kit can run a full SLAM tracking module on the Ceva-XM6 DSP at 60 frames per second consuming just 86mW (using a frame size of 1280 x 720, running on Ceva-XM6 using TSMC’s 16nm process).

The software development kit, deployed with a Ceva-XM DSP or a NeuPro AI processor, can be used for visual positioning, classical and neural network workloads for imaging and vision using SLAM.

The Ceva-SLAM software development kit is available for licensing now, exclusively in conjunction with the Ceva-XM intelligent vision DSPs and NeuPro AI processors.

Ceva will presenting the Ceva-SLAM software development kit at the Embedded Vision Summit in Santa Clara, California, USA (Wednesday 22 May).

Ceva licenses signal processing platforms and artificial intelligence processors. It provides low power IP for vision, audio, communications and connectivity including DSP-based platforms for LTE/LTE-A/5G baseband processing in handsets, infrastructure and cellular IoT (NB-IoT and Cat-M) enabled devices, imaging and computer vision for any camera-enabled device, audio/voice/speech and low power always-on/sensing applications for IoT markets.

http://www.ceva-dsp.com

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Aetina showcases transportation options at Computex 2019

Mon, May 20, 2019

Smart transportation and smart logistics of artificial intelligence (AI) with vehicle cameras will be on display at Computex 2019 at the Aetina stand (H 1-K0806) in Taipei (28 May to 1 June).

The company has identified intelligent transportation and logistics will be the main drivers of smart cities and e-commerce.

The edge AI computing company has worked with a third-party partner to embed AI for road and transit products.

For transportation, Aetina bases its edge computing on the Jetson for data processing when it is used to infer road situations, such as to calculate traffic flow, vehicle recognition, and traffic law enforcement. As well as immediately addressing an urban area’s traffic issues and adjusting conditions for short term gain, this can also help the transportation scheme in the city over a longer period of time and in the planning of future schemes.

In logistics, whether robotics in a warehouse, tracking or monitoring systems, AI can improve edge computing, says Aetina. Aetina has collaborated with ecosystem partners to deliver a 10 meter length of FPD link cameras and internet of vehicles (IoV) hardware, for AI logistics.

According to Aetina’s general manager, Joe Lo, “Everything will not only get onto the internet but will also have the ability to infer, to create more possibilities for a city”.

Aetina was founded in Taiwan in 2012. It is a provider of high-performance general purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) and Jetson edge AI computing products for embedded applications.

Aetina focuses on the industrial market, providing industrial grade components and is also an integrator of artificial intelligent IoT, offering a smart, innovative, and reliable solutions of GPUs.

http://www.aetina.com

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RX72T motor control MCUs serve industrial robots

Fri, May 17, 2019

32-bit motor control microcontrollers (MCUs) from Renesas Electronics have dedicated hardware accelerator IP to perform the complex, high-speed computations required for motor control in robots and other industrial equipment.

The RX72T series achieves an 1160 CoreMark score as measured by EEMBC benchmarks, claimed to be the highest level for a 5.0V MCU operating at 200MHz.

The RX72T extends the migration path across the RX family for low-cost designs in compact industrial robots, explains Renesas.

Typical applications are servo systems. The rising demand for compact industrial robots is a target application, where high-precision control of the position, direction, speed, and torque of the motor is required to implement complex motions.

The RX72T MCUs include dedicated accelerator hardware that enables the high-speed position control and speed control calculations required for implementing servo motor control in compact industrial robots. The current control loop calculation can be performed in less than 1.5 micro seconds. This presents a choice for users to independently develop servo systems where previously they only had the option of purchasing existing servo systems.

Implementing calculations in software can require excessive computing time. However, completely hardware-based calculations can adversely affect the flexibility to implement user control operations. The RX72T MCUs, Renesas implement only the single-precision floating point trigonometric function (sin, cos, arctan, hypot) and a register bank saves the function in hardware as dedicated IP. This retains flexibility while increasing the calculation speed, says Renesas. The save function increases the speed and precision of interrupt handling, improving the device computation performance, Renesas adds. The MCUs also include 200 MHz PWM inverter control timers with up to four channels of three-phase control, two channels of five-phase control or 10 channels of single-phase control.

Pairing Renesas’ Failure Detection e-AI Solutions for motors with the RX72T MCUs can improve productivity, says Renesas. Characteristic data (current and speed values) that indicate the motor state can be used directly to implement motor control and e-AI-based failure detection with a single MCU. The MCUs also feature hardware-based system failsafe functions and a hardware cryptography module that can be used to encrypt/decrypt communications data.

Renesas also provides the Renesas Motor Workbench 2.0 for real-time debugging and an RX72T CPU card that supports the 24 V motor control evaluation kit.

The MCUs will be available in mass production quantities beginning in Q4 2019.

https://www.renesas.com

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Rutronik UK supports STM32MP1 processor

Wed, May 15, 2019

System memory for the recently introduced STM32MP1 multi-core microprocessor series includes compute and graphics support combined with power-efficient real-time control. The aim is to aid the development of high-performance solutions for industrial, consumer, smart home, health and wellness applications.

Rutronik UK has combined STM32MP1 technology with approved technology partners Nanya in the form of a 4Gbit DDR3L SDRAM 16-bit and also Toshiba Memory’s 4GByte eMMC. The multi-core microprocessors and the memories, recommended by ST, are available from the distributor.

Engineers can used the STM32MP1 microprocessor series to develop a range of applications using the new heterogeneous architecture that combines up to two Arm Cortex-A7 and a Cortex-M4 core. This flexible architecture performs fast processing and real-time tasks on a single chip, always achieving the greatest power efficiency, reports Rutronik UK. The STM32MP1 embeds a 3D graphics processor unit (GPU) to support human machine interface (HMI) displays.

Rutronik also offers an evaluation board, the STM32MP157C-EV1 and two Discovery kits, the STM32MP157A-DK1 and STM32MP157C-DK2.

A firmware package, STM32CubeMX, is designed for software and hardware configuration of both the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-M4 cores. It handles C-code generation for the M4 core, DDR SDRAM interface configuration, and tuning tool. It can also generate Linux device trees.

Rutronik UK operates as an independent company in the UK. Its parent company, Rutronik Elektronische Bauelemente, is a broadline distributor for semiconductors, passive and electromechanical components in addition to storage technologies, displays and boards and wireless products. The markets that the company primarily targets include automotive, medical, industrial, home appliance, energy and lighting. It also offers support in the areas of product development and design, individual logistics and supply chain management.

http://www.rutronik.com

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Software development kit streamlines SLAM in mobile devices

Aetina showcases transportation options at Computex 2019

RX72T motor control MCUs serve industrial robots

Rutronik UK supports STM32MP1 processor

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