FPGA-based Realtime Vision Heads: Shinichi Hirai Contact: Tatsuhiko Tsuboi Date: 1999 - 2004 Mailing address: Dept. Robotics, Ritsumeikan Univ. Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan Supported by: Associated lab/group:

Project Description

We will develop realtime vision chips attachable to a robotic hand. Vision algorithms to detect the position and the orientation of a planar motion object are implemented on FPGA's to perform them within the video-frame rate.

Image matching is one of fundamental operations in many fields such as seal and signature identifications in bank operation, fingertip identification in security, and precise positioning and inspection in LPD/PPD manufacturing. In the past decades, many image matching algorithms are proposed including normalized correlation method, matched filtering, phase-only correlation method, Hough-Fourier transform method, and generalized Hough transform method. These algorithms require much computation time since the algorithms consist of 2D operations such as 2D FFT/IFFT, polar transform, and Hough transform. Thus, it is difficult to perform image matching in the video-frame rate using these algorithms. One approach to the realtime image matching is the development of ASIC's specialized to an image matching algorithm. Normalized correlation method deals with 2D translational motion alone while the other algorithms detect the translational and rotational motion on an image plane. Namely, the normalized correlation method is much simpler than the others. In addition, computation in normalized correlation method is general-purpose, which is applied to image compression, resulting that the computation has been implemented on ASIC's. Unfortunately, the other algorithms to detect the planar motion has not been implemented on ASIC's because of the complexity of the algorithms, which increases the cost in their implementation to ASIC's.

In recent years, FPGA's (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) are in market. FPGA's are special LSI's in which users can implement logic circuits. Users design logic circuits on a computer using a hardware description language. The designed circuit is implemented on an FPGA to be driven as a hard-wired logic circuit. Since no physical fabrication processes in ASIC development are needed in this FPGA approach, the cost in the implementation of a vision algorithm decreases. In addition, we can realize parallel and pipelined processing in an FPGA, implying that we can reduce the computation time to perform a vision algorithm with high parallelism. Fortunately, matched filtering, phase-only correlation method, Hough-Fourier transform method, and generalized Hough transform method have high parallelism. Thus, in this project, we implement these vision algorithms on FPGA's to realize a realtime vision system with high cost-performance.

FPGA-based realtime vision system

Computation of image gravity center by FPGA-based vision system

Detection of position and orientation by FPGA-based vision system

reference image	input image	occlusion
deformation	illumination change	halation

Robust and realtime image matching by FPGA vision system

Personnel

	Name	Title	Degree
	Tetsuya Yamamoto	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Hiroyuki Morihara	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Kohsuke Yamamoto	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Hiroaki Yosioka	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Masakazu Zakouji	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Akihiro Masubuchi	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Tatsuhiko Tsuboi	Graduated	Ph.D

Publications

• Tatsuhiko Tsuboi and Shinichi Hirai, Detection of planar motion objects using Radon transform and one-dimensional phase-only matched filtering, Systems and Computers in Japan, Vol.37, No.5, pp.56-66, 10.1002/scj.20398, May, 2006
• Shinichi Hirai, Masakazu Zakoji, Akihiro Masubuchi, and Tatsuhiko Tsuboi, Realtime FPGA-Based Vision System, Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, Vol.17, No.4, Special Issue on VLSI Computing for Real-World Intelligent Systems, pp.401-409, 10.20965/jrm.2005.p0401, Aug., 2005

• Shinya Yamamoto and Shinich Hirai, Robust and Video-frame Rate Tracking of Planar Motion by Matched Filtering on FPGA, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol.5, pp.4707-4712, 10.1109/ROBOT.2004.1302460, New Orleans, LA, U.S.A., Apr. 26 - May 1, 2004
• Shinichi Hirai, Masakazu Zakouji, Tatsuhiko Tsuboi, Implementing Image Processing Algorithms on FPGA-based Realtime Vision System, Proc. 11th Synthesis and System Integration of Mixed Information Technologies (SASIMI 2003), pp.378-385, Hiroshima, Japan, Apr. 3-4, 2003
• Tatsuhiko Tsuboi, Masakazu Zakouji, Akihiro Masubuchi, and Shinichi Hirai, Parallel Processing of One-sided Radon Transform for the Realtime Detection of Position and Orientation of Planar Motion Objects, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol.3, pp.2925-2930, 10.1109/ROBOT.2002.1013676, Washington D.C., U.S.A., May 11-15, 2002
• Shinichi Hirai, Tatsuhiko Tsuboi, Masakazu Zakouji, and Mizuho Shibata, Handling of Randomly Located Moving Parts using FPGA-based Realtime Vision, Proc. 7th Int. Conf. on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, Vol.3, pp.1150-1155, 10.1109/ICARCV.2002.1234935, Singapore, Dec. 2-5, 2002
• Tatsuhiko Tsuboi, Akihiro Masubuchi, Shinichi Hirai, Shinya Yamamoto, Kazuhiko Ohnishi, and Suguru Arimoto, Video-frame Rate Detection of Position and Orientation of Planar Motion Objects using One-sided Radon Transform, Proc. IEEE Int.Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol.2, pp.1233-1238, 10.1109/ROBOT.2001.932779, Seoul, Korea, May 21-26, 2001

Notes

Album	Realtime Hough transform by FPGA vision (mpg 2.7MB)	Realtime Hough transform by FPGA vision (mpg 3.3MB)	Realtime polar transform by FPGA vision (mpg 8.1MB)	Realtime polar transform by FPGA vision (mpg 6.0MB)
Planar motion tracking by FPGA vision (mpg 9.5MB)	Planar motion tracking by FPGA vision (mpg 5.7MB)	Calculation of image gravity center by FPGA vision (mpg 43.5MB)	FPGA vision system setup

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