Camera Image Processing on ESP32 Microcontroller with Help of Convolutional Neural Network

Abstract

This paper analyzes a common ESP32 microcontroller with a built-in camera for image classification tasks using a convolutional neural network. ESP32 is commonly used in IoT devices to read data and control sensors, so its computing power is not significant, which has a positive effect on the cost of the device. The prevalence of ultra-low power embedded devices such as ESP32 will allow the widespread use of artificial intelligence built-in IoT devices. The duration of photographing and photo processing is obtained in the paper, as this can be a bottleneck of the microcontroller, especially together with machine learning algorithms. Deployed convolutional neural network, pre-trained on another device, MobileNet architecture on microcontroller and proved that ESP32 capacity is sufficient for simultaneous operation of both the camera and convolutional neural network.