BitFlow, Inc., a global innovator in frame grabber technology, underscored its commitment to embedded vision by demonstrating a high-speed CoaXPress-NVIDIA® embedded imaging system at the recent Laser World of Photonics Show in Munich, Germany. This Small Form Factor (SFF) solution was engineered with lower hardware requirements so it can reside in compact devices or be integrated directly into a larger mechanical or electrical system, all while minimizing space, cost and energy consumption.
"Embedded vision is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to transform industries and open up new imaging capabilities that are almost infinite," said Donal Waide, Director of Sales for BitFlow. "Through our Innovation Labs division, BitFlow is leveraging the CoaXPress 2.0 interface to develop embedded systems that are faster, more intuitive, and easier to integrate throughout the factory, which is critical to success in the IIoT era."
As building blocks, BitFlow's CoaXPress-NVIDIA solution coupled the BitFlow Claxon-CXP4 Quad CXP-12 frame grabber with a NVIDIA Jetson TX2 high-density AI computing platform, and demonstrated with a JAI SP-12000C-CXP4 camera for image acquisition. HDMI, DisplayPort, DSI and eDP video ports provide flexibility in display choices. Dispensing with the need for a full-sized PC altogether, images relayed from the BitFlow Claxon frame grabber are more efficiently processed on the NVIDIA CPU. At Laser World of Photonics, for example, BitFlow demonstrated how its Claxon frame grabber provided Direct Memory Access (DMA) for 12 Megapixel images transferred into GPU memory where the NVIDIA processor performed 2D to 3D transformations in real time.
BitFlow Innovation Labs aims to usher in a host of next generation embedded solutions for the factory floor and beyond, radically changing the functionality of countless devices. Targeted applications include commercial drones, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), border and port security, robotics, portable medical machinery, and many other emerging market segments. Going even further, the BitFlow Innovation Labs foresees embedded systems that facilitate image recognition and deep learning capabilities so that Smart Factory networks can be proactive in making decisions based on the environment around them.
"We founded BitFlow Innovation Labs to accelerate the adoption of embedded vision and CoaXPress 2.0," said Waide. "By delivering new platforms based on both technologies, we are providing systems integrators with faster, smaller and more cost-effective solutions to deploy even their most mission critical imaging applications."