Object tracking using FPGA doubts.

[YuleWalker]

Hi
I am making this project on "object tracking using FPGA" for a school term. We basically plan to use a camera ( VGA) which would input a video, which will be framed. The frames will be processed by FPGA to track the object, calculate its trajectory and output it to a display device. So the way i see to go about it is this:
Simulate the algorithm in MATLAB ( to check image procesing algo's) and convert it into VHDL in XIlinx ISE and download it to FPGA. which may also be configured with an external memory to store frames.
Q1. I want to know if this is the most optimal way to go about it? or a faster/better way is possible?
Q2. Secondly, will spartan 2 be sufficient for this?

Thanks

 

[TrickyDicky]

1. Sounds good to me. Good luck. Will it be a static camera or moving camera? When you are talking about storing frames - is that for video capture or as video input?
2. Why such an old device? you could probably do it though, depending on your algorithm.

 

[YuleWalker]

Thank you. Well we plan to use a static camera for now. By moving, do you mean like if the object goes out of camera frame, then it moves to track it further ( like pan tilt mechanism)? We might add that mechanism. But not sure of that now.
Framing would be done for video capture. I ideally want this project to be real time processing. Do you think, spartan 2 would be a bad choice? thats what we have availlable for now.
I also wanted to know, that is using Xilinx platform studio, going to be much easier than ISE? ( in terms of developement time).
Thanks for your time!

 

[Zerox100]

Spartan III is minimum requirement. I recommend Virtex6 DSP version. for example (XC6VSX315T)

 

[TrickyDicky]

Platform studio is more like a system designer. It still uses ISE as the compiler. It really depends how involved you want to get.

Static camera will be a nice simple start. You can easily take a reference image (if you have enough external ram) and subtract it from the incoming video to get your target. Using a moving camera is a lot more involved as you dont have a static reference image. But it is very much possible. Companies have been doing it for years (at least 25!).

 

[YuleWalker]

Spartan III is minimum requirement. I recommend Virtex6 DSP version. for example (XC6VSX315T)

Hi,
Any particular reason you think that we would need a DSP version?

- - - Updated - - -

Static camera will be a nice simple start. You can easily take a reference image (if you have enough external ram) and subtract it from the incoming video to get your target. Using a moving camera is a lot more involved as you dont have a static reference image. But it is very much possible. Companies have been doing it for years (at least 25!).

Hi,
Yeah, most probably we would use a static camera. But i do want to try out the pan tilt mechanism, ( just some more stepper motor interfacing additionally).

 

[Zerox100]

Because you need some image processing mechanism that probably have heavy calculation (ADD, sub, mul, div , ... ). In DSP version there are some dsp block for these calculation that can speed up the design.

 

[spman]

Hi friends!
Glad to find this topic!
I want to work on real time object tracking on FPGA for my master thesis! Our board in the lab is ML605 (virtex6). The board has a DVI port for graphic input. Is there any camera or any other easy way to connect via DVI? I don't know anything about DVI.

 

[Zerox100]

I have some experience using FPGA for Image Processing. I would be happy if i can take share in these project. I can help on FPGA implementation.