Configurable Environment for Robust Vision in Industrial Processes

CERVIP - CP94-1263

Keywords: vision systems, industrial automation

Start Date: 1 February 95 / Status: finished / Duration: 21 months

Objectivies and Approach

The CERVIP project will build a new generation of flexible vision systems for a wide range of applications in the industrial inspection and visual control of robots, as well as medical and agricultural domains. The key components of the CERVIC system are:

system hosting by a low-cost PC compatible computer;
a set of integrated tools to implement and characterise computer vision algorithms;
integrated tools to support the migration of vision (and other) algorithms to fast digital hardware - CERVIC facilitates reuse of software components both at host level and at the level of DSP chips);
open architecture which is independent of specific processor hardware at both the level of the host and the plug-in acceleration hardware;
integrated system reconfigurability that will allow the same system to used for both the development of a task specific application as well as generation of the final turn- key system.

Progress and Results

CERVIC has been developed under 32-bit versions of MS Windows for portability and ease of use. The digital hardware acceleration boards employ a cluster of A-D SHARC DSP chips communicating with the host via a PCI bus; faster communication between boards is facilitated by a 1GB/s point-to-point message passing protocol.