New Imaging Applications Addresses with FPGA Technology

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The new NI 1483 Camera Link Adapter module for the NI FlexRIO platform addresses demanding vision applications with a hardware-defined programming solution.

Vision hardware is evolving to accommodate a greater number of demanding applications requiring faster processing, lower latency, and hardware defined customization.
One such advancement involves processing images directly on hardware using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) to take advantage of hardware-defined timing and synchronization. Because most image processing algorithms are inherently parallel, they are suitable for FPGA-based implementations that can perform operations by pixel, line, region, and entire images. Such algorithms include fast Fourier transforms (FFT), thresholding, filtering, and arithmetic operations.

These capabilities make FPGA technology suitable for applying preprocessing steps to extremely large images to improve, extract, or modify image features before sending them to a CPU for further analysis. Another ideal use case includes hardware-defined control where output signals can control external devices with extremely low latency in response to measured image characteristics.

The new NI 1483 Camera Link adapter module helps engineers embed vision and control algorithms directly on powerful FPGA using the NI FlexRIO hardware platform. Due to the NI LabVIEW FPGA graphical programming dataflow paradigm, hardware abstraction, and shorter time to market, this first FPGA image processing target offers platform for users and integrators alike. The module addresses applications such as acquisition from Camera Link devices of custom tap configurations, hardware-based preprocessing for images with 10 MP or more, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and high-speed control systems for laser alignment and sorting.


To learn more about the NI 1483 and FPGA vision applications, visit ni.com/info.