A New FPGA/DSP-Based Parallel Architecture for Real-Time Image Processing

In this article, we present a new reconfigurable parallel architecture oriented to video-rate computer vision applications. This architecture is structured with a two-dimensional (2D) array of FPGA/DSP-based reprogrammable processors P ij . These processors are interconnected by means of a systolic 2D array of FPGA-based video-addressing units which allow video-rate links between any two processors in the net to overcome the associated restrictions in classic crossbar systems such as those which occur with butterfly connections. This architecture has been designed to deal with parallel/pipeline procedures, performing operations which handle various simultaneous input images, and cover a wide range of real-time computer vision applications from pre-processing operations to low-level interpretation. This proposed open architecture allows the host to deal with final high-level interpretation tasks. The exchange of information between the linked processors P ij of the 2D net lies in the transfer of complete images, pixel by pixel, at video-rate. Therefore, any kind of processor satisfying such a requirement can be integrated. Furthermore, the whole architecture has been designed host-independent.