Implementing computer vision algorithms in hardware: An FPGA/VHDL-based vision system for a mobile robot

Abstract

A time critical process in a real-time mobile robot application such as RoboCup is the determination of the robot position in the game field. Aiming at low-cost and efficiency, this paper proposes the use of field-programmable gate array device (FPGA) in the vision system of a robotic team. We describe the translation of well-known computer vision algorithms to VHDL and detail the design of a working prototype that includes image acquisition and processing. The CV algorithms used in the system includes thresholding, edge detection and chain-code segmentation. Finally, we present results showing that an FPGA device provides hardware speed to user applications, delivering real-time speeds for image segmentation at an affordable cost. An efficiency comparison is made among the hardware-implemented and a software-implemented (C language) system using the same algorithms. © 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.