Peter Clarke, EETimes
3/13/2013 9:27 AM EDT
LONDON – Imagination Technologies Group plc has said it is "well advanced" in developing camera-related IP cores that can address growing markets in vision processing.
The concept of putting an application-specific processor close to an image sensor to perform tasks related to image capture and extracting useful information has been previously pursued by a number of startup and system companies.
One of the benefits is that in distributed and complex embedded systems it can reduced power consumption and the burden on the central processing unit if raw data is converted into relevant information at the camera. Embedded vision in robotics and such things as security cameras and automobiles are all growing markets for smart cameras that can perform such tasks as pattern-recognition, or recognizing pedestrians or faces.