Camera Solutions for Embedded Vision Systems: MIPI CSI-2 and FPD-Link III
Published on June 19, 2020 by TIS Marketing.
Embedded vision platforms from NVIDIA, NXP, Qualcomm and Raspberry Pi have become increasingly powerful and thus interesting for a wide range of machine vision and AI applications.
These SoMs (System on Module) feature an Image Signal Processor (ISP) with MIPI/CSI-2 camera interface. The ISP performs hardware accelerated operations such as de-bayering, color correction, color space conversion, white balance, lens correction and image data compression (H.264/H.256). In addition to the ISP, the SoMs have ARM cores and GPUs for general image processing and control tasks. Users also have the option of equipping the SoMs with their own carrier boards to implement their own applications. Examples: carrier boards for automotive applications with multi-camera inputs and FAKRA connectors; LIDAR and ultrasonic inputs; CAN bus interfaces for driver assistance systems.
Even with all the advantages these SoMs promise, several technical hurdles must be overcome. For example, each MIPI camera sensor requires its own kernel mode driver and each ISP needs a specfic sensor configuration. The Imaging Source In order to operate NVIDIA SoMs at maximum performance, passes on this know-how to its customers.
Additionally, the length of the MIPI connection cable should not exceed a maximum length of 20 cm. This restriction can be overcome with a MIPI to FPD-Link III Serializer board and a thin coaxial cable. Cable lengths of up to 15m can be implemented in this way. This makes this technology interesting for a variety of automotive, robotics and inspection applications.
The Imaging Source manufactures various MIPI camera modules that can be connected to an FPD-Link III serializer board. Deserializer boards are available for the NVIDIA platform and Raspberry Pi.
The NVIDIA platform, consisting of the Jetson Nano, Jetson TX2, and Jetson AGX Xavier SoMs, is a multi-camera platform that is particularly interesting for automotive, machine vision, and AI applications. In addition, this platform is used by many software and hardware developers and is accordingly well supported.
The Imaging Source supports the NVIDIA platform with proprietary MIPI/ FPD-Link III drivers, deserializer boards and a Linux SDK. Using the MVTec Machine Vision Library HALCON, a wide range of image processing applications can be realized with little programming effort.
The following MIPI camera modules with Sony and ONSemi sensors plus separate FPD-Link III serializer board are offered by The Imaging Source: IMX 390, IMX 290, IMX 335, IMX 397, IMX 296, IMX 334, IMX 297 und AR 0234