Intel White Paper on Supporting Low-Power EO IR System Development Using FPGAs, Image and Sensor Processing IP

Enabling Low-Power EO/IR System Development with FPGAs and Image- and

Development with FPGAs and Image- and Sensor-Processing IPEnabling Low-Power EO/IR System

WP-01129-1.0 White Paper

Before embarking on the development of a next-generation electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) system, it is important to not only understand the power and performance characteristics of the FPGA, but also the various functions developed both as IP and reference designs. Altera’s VIP Suite of Mega Core® functions provide sensor control and various image-processing capabilities, including buffering, scaling, filtering, and combining video streams in real time. Imagize’s FP-5500 compact video-processing engine offers sensor processing and image fusion on an Altera® Cyclone® FPGA platform, meeting system performance and size, weight, and power (SWa P) requirements for next-generation EO/IR systems. Implementing these functions on Altera’s Cyclone IV FPGAs can kick-start development efforts for next- generation EO/IR and display systems, as well as provide a canned solution for the “boring” aspects of system design, leaving the designer free to innovate on value-add functions.

Introduction

Military imaging systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, incorporating multiple advanced sensors ranging from thermal infrared, to visible, to even ultraviolet focal planes. Not only do these sensor outputs need to be corrected, interpolated, etc., often images from multiple sensors must be combined and further processed for local display and/or for transmission.

Figure 1 shows a high-level block diagram of a typical signal chain implemented in an electro-optical infrared (EO/IR) system. As shown, the processed image is compressed many times (usually lossless) before being transmitted over a communications link.

Figure 1. Typical Signal Chain for an EO/IR System

Pixel data

Sensor Video RGB

Local

processing processing display

Image sensor

(Lossless) compression Comms link

Combining exceptional image quality with low power consumption is the key challenge when designing EO/IR systems. For hand-held and wearable systems, such as night-vision goggles (NVGs) or weapon sights, the critical specification is often the number of hours a unit can run on AA batteries. According to military estimates, “An infantry soldier requires one AA battery an hour in combat.” (1)

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June 2010 Altera Corporation

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