Live demonstration: A sensor-processor array integrated circuit for high-speed real-time machine vision

A demonstration is made of the high-speed real-time image processing capabilities of the SCAMP-5 vision chip. The device provides a software-programmable 256×256 pixel-parallel SIMD processor array. In the example application, the IC can determine dimensions and the location of a single object, at a sustained rate of 100,000fps. At 30,000fps, the chip can return the same metrics from 5 objects. This is accomplished by use of near-sensor processing which circumvents the requirement to digitise images; all processing is done “on the focal plane” and only high-level object information is transmitted off-chip as discrete address-events.