Celoxica Design Enables Complex License Plate Recognition for Intelligent Transportation Systems.YOKOHAMA, Japan -- Industry-Leading C-Based ESL (1) An earlier family of client/server development tools for Windows and OS/2 from Ardent Software (formerly VMARK). It was originally developed by Easel Corporation, which was acquired by VMARK. Tools Deliver Real-Time Performance and Meet Stringent Automotive Drive-by-Wire Environment and Power Constraints Celoxica Ltd., Calsonic Kansei Corp. and researchers at Keio University Keio University (慶應義塾大学 Keiō gijuku daigaku announced today that they have co-developed a new drive-by-wire automotive system to dramatically reduce traffic accidents and gridlock Gridlock A government, business or institution's inability to function at a normal level due either to complex or conflicting procedures within the administrative framework or to impending change in the business. on crowded freeways. The system was designed with Celoxica's industry-leading, C-based electronic system level (ESL) design and synthesis solutions for use in on-board automotive intelligent transportation systems (ITS). The system captures and identifies a vehicle in real-time with more than double the performance, inherent adaptability and with lower power consumption than similar previous systems. Using license-plate recognition to calculate driving criteria such as distance and position the system allows the driver to maintain a safe distance from a car in front to reduce "tail-gating," and rear-end collisions. The ultimate use of the technology is the possibility of autopiloting the car with the flick of a switch. Once the majority of the cars in the world are so equipped, traffic will flow smoother, faster with fewer accidents and reduce automotive care and insurance costs. "Our C-based design and synthesis technology is unlocking the potential of lower power, flexible FPGAs for next generation automotive electronics," said Colin Mason Colin Victor James Mason is an Australian journalist, author and politician who was elected to the Australian Senate at the 1977 election as a senator for New South Wales, joining with Don Chipp (Victoria) in the first accession of the Australian Democrats to the Senate. , VP Asia Pacific, general manager and representative director, Celoxica Japan K.K. "C-based design is now the de facto [Latin, In fact.] In fact, in deed, actually. This phrase is used to characterize an officer, a government, a past action, or a state of affairs that must be accepted for all practical purposes, but is illegal or illegitimate. enabling technology for rapidly accelerating complex custom algorithms in high performance silicon." Recognition systems typically rely on sophisticated image processing image processing Set of computational techniques for analyzing, enhancing, compressing, and reconstructing images. Its main components are importing, in which an image is captured through scanning or digital photography; analysis and manipulation of the image, accomplished algorithms running on high-end processors linked to a camera. However the on-board, or in-car, constraints set by the project such as power consumption, heat and space meant a processor-based solution was impractical and due to rapidly changing standards in ITS, custom ASIC A redundant reference to an ASIC chip. ASICs are already customized for a specific use. See ASIC. was too expensive and inflexible. The end solution was FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) A type of gate array that is programmed in the field rather than in a semiconductor fab. Containing up to hundreds of thousands of gates, there are a variety of FPGA architectures on the market. based with the algorithm parallelization, acceleration and implementation made possible using the Celoxica DK Design Suite. Connected to a car mounted CCD CCD in full charge-coupled device Semiconductor device in which the individual semiconductor components are connected so that the electrical charge at the output of one device provides the input to the next device. (charge-coupled device See CCD. (electronics) charge-coupled device - (CCD) A semiconductor technology used to build light-sensitive electronic devices such as cameras and image scanners. CCDs can be made to detect either colour or black-and-white. ) camera, total processing time that included intensity conversion and color sorting was reduced from 21.56ms to only 10.0ms. "Applying recognition processing into automobiles requires low to medium volume, low power and rapid design to support the wide variety of chip types needed to meet the characteristics of different cars," said Mr. Masatoshi Arai, manager, Advanced Engineering Development Group, Calsonic Kansei Corp. "To meet these requirements FPGAs are a better choice than ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. and the DK Design Suite provided a distinct advantage by helping us to quickly design and implement the different design parameters needed by the project." "The automotive industry The automotive industry is the industry involved in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, and sale of motor vehicles. In 2006, more than 69 million motor vehicles, including cars and commercial vehicles were produced worldwide. is seeing an explosion in the number of electronic devices and solutions needed to meet customer demand, expectations and safety regulations. Because of the complexity involved and the unique constraints of in-car electronics it is critical that designers can quickly exploit the potential of FPGAs and low-power, high-performance flexible hardware," said Professor Hideharu Amano, Keio University. "Our research demonstrates that by combining parallel reconfigurable architectures with design entry and implementation that is above RTL (Register Transfer Level) A high-level hardware description language (HDL) for defining digital circuits. The circuits are described as a collection of registers, Boolean equations, control logic such as "if-then-else" statements as well as complex event sequences; , existing automotive designers can move into new silicon paradigms and quickly implement systems that out perform traditional solutions in terms of power, performance and time to market." About Celoxica An innovator in Electronic System Level (ESL) design, Celoxica is turning software into silicon by supplying the design tools, boards, IP and services that enable the next generation of advanced electronic product design. Celoxica technology raises design abstraction to the algorithm level, accelerating productivity and lowering risk and costs by generating semiconductor hardware directly from C-based software descriptions. Adding to a growing installed base, Celoxica provides the world's most widely used C-based behavioral design and synthesis solutions to companies developing semiconductor products in markets such as consumer electronics, defense and aerospace, automotive, industrial and security. For more information, visit: www.celoxica.com. About Calsonic Kansei Corp. Founded in 1938, Calsonic is expected by automobile manufacturers around the world to respond to their policy of the optimum global sourcing, which requires suppliers to provide a timely supply of attractive products of the globally uniform quality and cost levels. Calsonic Kansei Corp. is meeting such customers' needs by offering module products to every market of the world with the backing of its superb development and production engineering capabilities. We are determined to develop Calsonic Kansei Corp to the No. 1 module supplier in the world that is excellent in making speedy and creative presentations to customers by further advancing its total capabilities of development and production as well as expanding globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation in every sphere of its operations. For more information visit http://www.calsonickansei.co.jp/english/index.html. About Keio University Keio has a proud history as Japan's very first private institution of higher learning higher learning n. Education or academic accomplishment at the college or university level. , which dates back to the formation of a school for Dutch studies in 1858 by founder Yukichi Fukuzawa. Since the school's inception, the students of Keio have risen to the forefront of innovation in every imaginable academic field, emerging as social and economic leaders. Keio University is involved in a wide range of activities beyond its academic faculties, including the running of several research laboratories and attached facilities, and participation in unique research and development involving the cooperation of industry, government, and academia both in Japan and abroad. For more information visit http://www.keio.ac.jp/index-en.html. Celoxica and the Celoxica logo are trademarks of Celoxica Ltd. All other brand names and product names are the property of their respective owners. |
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