congatec has extended its i.MX 8 ecosystem with a new starter set for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-accelerated intelligent embedded vision applications.
Based on a SMARC Computer-on-Module with an i.MX 8M Plus processor, the starter set allows the utilization of the new processor integrated NXP Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
Delivering up to 2.3 TOPS of performance for deep learning-based AI, it can run inference engines and libraries such as Arm Neural Network and TensorFlow Lite. It also integrates with Basler embedded vision software for developing next-generation AI accelerated embedded vision systems. Typical applications are wide ranging, from price sensitive automated checkout terminals in retail to building safety, and from in-vehicle vision for navigation to surveillance systems in busses. Industrial use cases include HMIs with vision based user identification and gesture based machine operation as well as vision supported robotics and industrial quality inspection systems.
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 suited 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 Neural Network and TensorFlow Lite ecosystem.
“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,” said Martin Danzer, Director Product Management at congatec.
“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.”
