A programmable SIMD vision chip for real-time vision applications

A programmable vision chip for real-time vision applications is presented. The chip architecture is a combination of a SIMD processing element array and row-parallel processors, which can perform pixel-parallel and row-parallel operations at high speed. It implements the mathematical morphology method to carry out low-level and mid-level image processing and sends out image features for high-level image processing without I/O bottleneck. The chip can perform many algorithms through software control. The simulated maximum frequency of the vision chip is 300 MHz with 16 x 16 pixels resolution. It achieves the rate of 1000 frames per second in real-time vision. A prototype chip with a 16 x 16 PE array is fabricated by the 0.18 mu m standard CMOS process. It has a pixel size of 30 mu m x 40 mu m and 8.72 mW power consumption with a 1.8 V power supply. Experiments including the mathematical morphology method and target tracking application demonstrated that the chip is fully functional and can be applied in real-time vision applications.

A Novel Architecture of Vision Chip for Fast Traffic Lane Detection and FPGA Implementation

This paper presents a novel architecture of vision chip for fast traffic lane detection (FTLD). The architecture consists of a 32*32 SIMD processing element (PE) array processor and a dual-core RISC processor. The PE array processor performs low-level pixel-parallel image processing at high speed and outputs image features for high-level image processing without I/O bottleneck. The dual-core processor carries out high-level image processing. A parallel fast lane detection algorithm for this architecture is developed. The FPGA system with a CMOS image sensor is used to implement the architecture. Experiment results show that the system can perform the fast traffic lane detection at 50fps rate. It is much faster than previous works and has good robustness that can operate in various intensity of light. The novel architecture of vision chip is able to meet the demand of real-time lane departure warning system.

A 1,000 Frames/s Programmable Vision Chip with Variable Resolution and Row-Pixel-Mixed Parallel Image Processors

A programmable vision chip with variable resolution and row-pixel-mixed parallel image processors is presented. The chip consists of a CMOS sensor array, with row-parallel 6-bit Algorithmic ADCs, row-parallel gray-scale image processors, pixel-parallel SIMD Processing Element (PE) array, and instruction controller. The resolution of the image in the chip is variable: high resolution for a focused area and low resolution for general view. It implements gray-scale and binary mathematical morphology algorithms in series to carry out low-level and mid-level image processing and sends out features of the image for various applications. It can perform image processing at over 1,000 frames/s (fps). A prototype chip with 64 x 64 pixels resolution and 6-bit gray-scale image is fabricated in 0.18 mu m Standard CMOS process. The area size of chip is 1.5 mm x 3.5 mm. Each pixel size is 9.5 mu m x 9.5 mu m and each processing element size is 23 mu m x 29 mu m. The experiment results demonstrate that the chip can perform low-level and mid-level image processing and it can be applied in the real-time vision applications, such as high speed target tracking.

Determination of Proper Processing Conditions of Material Surface Heat Treatment Through Finite Element Method

A two-dimensional model has been developed based on the experimental results of stainless steel remelting with the laminar plasma technology to investigate the transient thermo-physical characteristics of the melt pool liquids. The influence of the temperature field, temperature gradient, solidification rate and cooling rate on the processing conditions has been investigated numerically. Not only have the appropriate processing conditions been determined according to the calculations, but also they have been predicted with a criterion established based on the concept of equivalent temperature area density (ETAD) that is actually a function of the processing parameters and material properties. The comparison between the resulting conditions shows that the ETAD method can better predict the optimum condition.

Influence of the Processing Conditions on the Characteristics of the Clad Layers Produced with Laminar Plasma Technology

Laminar plasma technology was used to produce ceramic hardened layers of Al2O3-40% mass Ni composite powders on stainless steel substrates. In order to investigate the influences of processing conditions on the morphologies of the surface modified layers, two different powder-feeding methods were tested, one with carrier gas called the powder injection method, and the other without carrier gas called powder transfers method. The microscopic investigations demonstrate that the cross-section of the clad layers consists of two distinct microstructural regions, in which the Al2O3 phases exhibit different growth mechanisms. When the powder transfers method is adopted, the number density and volume fraction of the Al2O3 particles increase considerably and their distributions exhibit zonal periodical characteristics. When the powder-feeding rate increases, the microstructure of the Al2O3 phases changes from a small globular to a long needle shape. Finite element simulations show that the transient thermo-physical features of the pool substances, such as solidification rate and cooling rate, influence strongly the mechanisms of the nucleation and the directional growth of the Al2O3 phases in the thermal processing.

Investigation of Laminar Plasma Remelting/Cladding Processing

Investigation of remelting and cladding processing with laminar plasma jets on several metals has been conducted looking for possible development of a new surface modification technique. The remelting tests illustrated that the new method could evidently improve the material microstructure and properties of cast iron. The cladding was done with Al2O3 ceramic powder on stainless steel. The energy dispersive spectra (EDS) analysis was used to determine the distribution of the major cladding element in the plasma-processed layers, for which the microstructure observations and hardness measurements were also performed.

Three-dimensional finite element analysis of composites with coated spherical inclusions

A three-dimensional finite element analysis has been used to determine the internal stresses in a three-phase composite. The stresses have been determined for a variety of interphase properties, the thicknesses of the interphase and the volume fractions of particles. Young's modulus has been calculated from a knowledge of these stresses and the applied deformation. The calculations show that stress distributions in the matrix and the mechanical properties are sensitive to the interphase property in the three-phase composites. The interfacial stresses in the three-dimensional analysis are in agreement with results obtained by an axisymmetric analysis. The predicted bulk modulus in three-dimensional analysis agrees well with the theoretical solution obtained by Qui and Weng, but it presents a great divergence from that in axisymmetric analyses. An investigation indicates that this divergence may be caused by the difference in the unit cell structure between two models. A comparison of the numerically predicted bulk and shear modulus for two-phase composites with the theoretical results indicates that the three-dimensional analysis gives quite satisfactory results.

Quantum information processing in the wall of cytoskeletal microtubules

Microtubules (MT) are composed of 13 protofilaments, each of which is a series of two-state tubulin dimers. In the MT wall, these dimers can be pictured as "lattice" sites similar to crystal lattices. Based on the pseudo-spin model, two different location states of the mobile electron in each dimer are proposed. Accordingly, the MT wall is described as an anisotropic two-dimensional (2D) pseudo-spin system considering a periodic triangular "lattice". Because three different "spin-spin" interactions in each cell exist periodically in the whole MT wall, the system may be shown to be an array of three types of two-pseudo-spin-state dimers. For the above-mentioned condition, the processing of quantum information is presented by using the scheme developed by Lloyd.

TWO-DIMENSIONAL ARRAY OF ION TRAPS ON A PLANAR CHIP

We investigate a planar ion chip design with a two-dimensional array of linear ion traps for the scalable quantum information processor. The segmented electrodes reside in a single plane on a substrate and a grounded metal plate, a combination of appropriate rf and DC potentials are applied to them for stable ion confinement, and the trap axes are located above the surface at a distance controlled by the electrodes' lateral extent and the substrate's height as discussed. The potential distributions are calculated using static electric field qualitatively. This architecture is conceptually simple and many current microfabrication techniques are feasible for the basic structure. It may provide a promising route for scalable quantum computers.

Logic-operated mathematical morphology and its optical implementation

A more powerful tool for binary image processing, i.e., logic-operated mathematical morphology (LOMM), is proposed. With LOMM the image and the structuring element (SE) are treated as binary logical variables, and the MULTIPLY between the image and the SE in correlation is replaced with 16 logical operations. A total of 12 LOMM operations are obtained. The optical implementation of LOMM is described. The application of LOMM and its experimental results are also presented. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America.

Morphological ordered gray-scale erosion for optical image processing

An ordered gray-scale erosion is suggested according to the definition of hit-miss transform. Instead of using three operations, two images, and two structuring elements, the developed operation requires only one operation and one structuring element, but with three gray-scale levels. Therefore, a union of the ordered gray-scale erosions with different structuring elements can constitute a simple image algebra to program any combined image processing function. An optical parallel ordered gray-scale erosion processor is developed based on the incoherent correlation in a single channel. Experimental results are also given for an edge detection and a pattern recognition. (C) 1998 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(98)00306-7].

Experimental demonstration of phase locking of a two-dimensional fiber laser array using a self-imaging resonator

Phase locking of a two-dimensional fiber laser array is experimentally demonstrated by using a self-imaging resonator and a spatial filter. The stable beam profiles of in-phase mode and out-of-phase mode are observed by controlling the position of spatial filter. The phase locking fiber array with in-phase mode has produced 26 W coherent output. An antisymmetric eigenmode is also observed in our experiments. The phase locking is not sensitive to power variations among the pump beams and the configuration has the ability to repair a missing element. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Crosstalk analysis of a fiber laser sensor array system based on digital phase-generated carrier scheme

A detailed study on analyzing the crosstalk in a wavelength division multiplexed fiber laser sensor array system based on a digital phase generated carrier interferometric interrogation scheme is reported. The crosstalk effects induced by the limited optical channel isolation of a dense wavelength division demultiplexer (DWDM) are presented, and the necessary channel isolation to keep the crosstalk negligible to the output signal was calculated via Bessel function expansion and demonstrated by a two serial fiber laser sensors system. Finally, a three-element fiber laser sensor array system with a 50-dB channel-isolation DWDM was built up. Experimental results demonstrated that there was no measurable crosstalk between the output channels.