by Lidia Paulinska | Jun 13, 2016
Embedded Vision Summit, May, 2016 – The original title of Larry Matthies, Senior Scientist from NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, was “Using Vision to Enable Autonomous Land, Sea and Air Vehicles”. Matthies added “the space” to emphasize the surroundings of these vehicles. “How I could forget about space”, he noted. When we think about autonomous vehicles, what comes to our minds are the vehicles on the roads but the scientists are continuing to develop the driverless vehicles for sea, air and space.
Matthies mentioned that the primary application domains and main JPL themes for autonomous vehicles are now as follows: 1. Land – all-terrain autonomous mobility; mobile manipulation 2. Sea: USV escort teams: UUVs for subsurface oceanography 3. Space: assembling large structures in Earth orbit 4. Air: Mars precision landing; rotorcraft for Mars and Titan; drone autonomy on Earth.
Then he described some of the capabilities and challenges that the scientists are facing. One important capability is absolute and relative localization. The key challenges in this domain are: appearance variability, lighting, weather, seasonality, moving objects, and fail-safe performance. Localization has been tested on wheeled, tracked, and legged vehicles in both indoor and outdoor settings, as well as with drones, and Mars rovers and landers.
Another capability the speaker discussed is obstacle detection. This capability includes stationary or moving objects, obstacle type identification and classification, and the ability to determine the capacity and feasibility of terrain traffic. Complementing the detection functions are the understanding of other scene semantics as such landmarks signs, destinations, etc., perceiving people and their activities, and perception for grasping.
The challenges facing the observability sensors are non-trivial. Some of the difficult image characteristics include fast motion, variable lighting conditions such as low light, no light, and very wide dynamic range. The environment can have atmospheric conditions such as haze, fog, smoke or precipitation, and can have many difficult object parameters like featureless, specular, and transparent and terrain types such as obstacles in grass, water, snow, ice, mud. Finally, the last challenge that developers must address is the tradeoff between computational costs versus processor power.
by Lidia Paulinska | Jun 13, 2016
Embedded Vision Summit, May, 2016 – Marco Jacobs from Videantis talked about the status, challenges and trends in computer vision for cars. Videantis, which has over 10 years in business, is the number 1 supplier of vision processors. In 2008 company moved into the automotive space.
What is a future of transportation?
Definitely we will be travelling less than today. Typically less than 100 miles in a day. The only autonomous people mover today is an elevator. So, when can we expect autonomous cars on our roads? At CES 2016 the CEO of Bosch answered – “Next decade maybe”. For now we have low speed and parking assistance but highway, exit to exit… around 2020.
The autonomous vehicle development is described in levels that range from L0 to L5. Today in production are levels L0, L1 and L2. L0 is where driver fully operates a vehicle, L1 is where the driver holds wheel or controls the pedals and vehicle steers or controls speed. Finally L2 is where the drivers monitor, at all times, and vehicle drives itself but not 100% safely. Level 3 needs R&D and L4 and L5 is when the paradigm changes.
How does the market look in numbers?
There is 1.2B vehicles on the road, 20 OEMs produce over 1M each year, 100M cars sold each year, 100 Tier 1s creates over $1B revenue ($800B combined), and less than $1T business excluding infrastructure, fuel, and insurance, around 25% of the cost is electronics.
Today, new cars also carry 0.4 cameras. There is an opportunity to increase that number to 10 cameras per car to extend visibility. In L0 vehicles there are rear, surround and mirror cameras. In L2 and L3 there will be rear, surround, mirror and front cameras.
Rear camera functions typically included: wide angle lens, lens dewarp, graphics for guidelines, H.264 compression for transmission over the automotive in-car Ethernet. Vision technology allows for real-time camera calibration, dirty lens detection, parking assistance, cross traffic alert, backover protection and trailer steering assistance.
The surround view typical functions include: image stitching and re-projection. Vision technology in this application offers: structure from motion, automated parking assistance such as marker detection, free parking space detection and obstacle detection, including everything that rear camera vision functions include.
Mirror replacement to cameras on vehicles will reduce drag and expand the driver’s view. Its typical function include: image stitching and lens dewarping, blind spot detection and rear collision warning. Vision technology offers: object detection, optical flow and structure from motion, as well as the basic features found in rear cameras.
Typical function of a front camera that provides control of speed and the steering wheel are: emergency braking, auto cruise control, pedestrian and vehicle detection, lane detection and keeping, traffic sign recognition, headlight control, bicycle recognition (2018) and intersections (2020). Drive monitoring that is in L0 has features as such: driver drowsiness detection, driver distraction detection, airbag deployment, seatbelt adjustment and driver authentication. Vision technology offers: face detect and analysis, as well as driver’s posture detection.
Here is the image processing pipeline:
The speaker mentioned and discussed the challenges like work under all conditions: cold & hot: low power; dark & light: HDR, noise; dirty lens; detect angles; operating over a speed range of 0-120mph: the need to select different algorithms; car loaded/dinged: calibration. Challenge is also working under severe power constraints such as: power source 100W, small form factors limits heat dissipation or complete smart camera less 1W. Another challenge is: what is the better option: centralized or distributed processing, as both have pros and cons. Pros for central processing is that single processing platform eases software development but the cons are: entry-level car also needs high-end head unit; it is not scalable and not modular; adding cameras causes system overload. Distributed processing seems to have more pros such as: low-end head unit, options become plug-and-play, and every camera adds processing capabilities. But the cost is: the system is more complex. The reality today is that some cars have 250 ECUs.
Jacobs’s final conclusions were: the business opportunity is huge (>$1T), self-driving car tech causes paradigm shift (new players can grab market share), automotive is not like consumer electronics, next 10 years no self-driving cars (change will be gradual, lots of driver assist functions with vision technologies; efficient computer vision systems are the key enabler for making our cars safer.
by Lidia Paulinska | Jun 12, 2016
IMS, May 2016 –At the International Microwave Symposium this year a legendary inventor, a father of the cellphone, Dr. Martin Cooper, was speaking at the plenary session on Monday, May 23. In 1973 Dr. Cooper worked for Motorola when he presented the first handheld cellular phone to the world. In a short 10 years later, the “DynaTAC 8000x” the model was released to the market. Today it is hard to believe that first cellphone weighed almost 2 pounds and looked and felt like a brick. The first model that retailed for $3,995 and with its 30 minute of battery charge, it was far away from the functionality and beauty of today’s standards. But since that time, cellular phones have been becoming less expensive and with upgrades and vast technology improvements, the mobile phone was becoming accepted as part of the mainstream life on its way to conquering the world. In the last 20 years, the number of cellular phones rose from 12 million to 5 billion. Dr. Cooper maintains that, although the phone contains amazing semiconductor and other advance technologies, the phone itself is still in its infancy. Personal wireless connectivity has the potential to change our approach to health care and education sectors.
Unfortunately Dr Martin speech was disrupted twice by fire alarms and some time passed by because of the clearance procedures but having this accomplished inventor at IMS was a real treat for the attendees.
by Lidia Paulinska | May 30, 2016
Just two more weeks until the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the world’s premiere trade show for computer and video games, that is being held at the LA Convention Center. More than 20,000 attendees are expected, many new products and announcements but also for the first time the fans and enthusiasts of the electronic entertainment can be a part of that exciting event. E3 Live will be situated at Downtown Los Angeles’ sports and entertainment district of the city and will be open to the ticketed public.
E3 and E3 Live will be taking place from Tuesday, June 14 till Thursday, June 16. Before the doors open for the show let get a glimpse at the state of the industry.
Games industry is the fastest growing sector of the modern entertainment industry and is part of modern culture. Today game enthusiasts expect a richer, fuller and more involving game experience. Under such demanding clientele, more dynamic and multidirectional developments of games have been created, and the pallets of emotions both in the game and experienced by the player, have been greatly increased. Production studios strive for authenticity and put meticulous attention to detail, bringing players into a new level of realism, which may include 3D technology that changes flat images to three-dimensional images and cinematic quality photo-realistic events. Today’s game has a story line, utilizes state of the art visual graphics and utilizes new, advanced form of interaction with the player. In addition there is also increased proliferation of artists in the games industry, who get to express themselves creatively and individually. The impact of the games on mass culture is unquestionable and its value is growing at a dynamic pace.
The big attraction this year is the realization of the hype created by the Virtual Reality (VR) products. Not only is VR in a number of new platforms from companies like Oculus, Sony, Samsung, Razer, HTC and others, but the show will feature a full VR ecosystem. Accessories for controlling the game, walking around and being fully physically immersed in the game, new sensors, games from major publishers and companies as well new experiences from independent developers.
The other major attraction at the show is the availability of accessories and peripherals for the new consoles and high performance PCs released in the past couple of years. The accessories – charging devices, extension cables, headphones, and controllers, performance accessories such as CPU & memory coolers, and skins /decorative items take a little bit to develop after the platforms are released, as they require the software titles to make their market entry before the user community makes the commitment to adopt the large variety of branded items.
The industry topped $131B USD in sales covering the hardware, software and accessories marketplace.
More info at http://www.e3expo.com/url_takeover
by Lidia Paulinska | May 30, 2016
NAB, April 2016 – OWC is the abbreviation for Other World Computing, one of the longest running 3rd party computer component and storage solutions providers in the personal computer industry. The company started with individual users and small companies and now supports enterprise customers and cloud providers with their products. In a casual and comfortable one on one discussion, we sat down with their CEO and founder to talk about his journey and the company.
It seems like yesterday, said Larry O’Connor, when I asked about his early age of establishing his company. He was 14 years old. Young entrepreneur from Wichita, Illinois. It was in the middle of nowhere – he recalled – “My dad used the computers in his business, he had a TRS 80, so I was exposed to this “staff” in the early age.” He upgraded it.
I do think that was a disruptive business in that time, and I did think I could do it better – he stated.
He recalled, he saw the man coming to their place to do an upgrade on a computer. The technical spent most of his time sitting with the feet on the desk and reading a newspaper. It was then he realized that the paperwork took more time than the effort and process of upgrading the computer. He explained that he then realize, all the folks that need a memory upgrade they don’t need to go to a local computer store. I don’t need to go to the computer store. I can support them and educate them, upgrade it, and even show them how to do it faster and for better price.
In those days, back in the early 1980’s , he found that prices were not changing that quickly and the major computer sale magazines had prices and multiple suppliers for memory, storage and all the accessories. He then found that AOL had an on-line store and chat rooms and an 800 phone number, so his age did not matter, just his knowledge and enthusiasm, to be able sell products. Also, this time was the start of the rise of overnight shipping industry. This was convenient as he could not drive to buy parts or pickup systems for service.
The company started with providing services with known parts going into known computers. He started identifying new components that would improve the performance of the computers his customers had without having them buy a whole new system. He also started to build devices & software that would allow existing parts and peripherals to work with new operating systems and computers.
The driving factor is he cares about the customer, their problems and how to make the computers a productivity tool for them rather than a block in their path they have to put a big effort into learning. He has kept this mentality as the core of the company, and found people with like thinking along the way.
When asked, how did he transition from one person at his parent’s house to running a company that just relocated as they exhausted the local hiring talent pool, he said that he does not feel he runs the company. While people work for him and may report to him, he has to report to everyone at the company and the customers – he is responsible to everyone for what they are doing.
A focus for the company is still on solving customer problems, he sees the future in software to solve problems and expense for customers as well as preserving the value of legacy hardware. He feels that computers and accessories get obsoleted by software applications faster than they stop working and need to be replaced. Software and support can help extend the useful life of a lot of legacy technology for customers at a fair price.
