A Platform on All-Programmable SoC for Micro Autonomous Robots

Abstract

We present a platform on all-programmable SoC for micro autonomous robots for probing, exploring, rescuing, etc. Contrast to challenges for auto drive cars having relatively rich power supply and high-performance computing platform, our challenge is to develop technologies for autonomous robots with tight restrictions on size, weight, and energy consumption. We utilize all-programmable SoCs for the purpose and develop a system including camera interface, image processing, recognition, action planning, and motor control. The key techniques are to optimize the dataflow between software (and main memory) and hardware for efficiency and to adopt a standard stream interface in hardware modules for productivity. The system can be utilized as a common platform for micro autonomous robots. The system is implemented as a robot car named ZybotR2-Z2 and achieves 3 to 37 frame/sec image recognition and car control with single Zynq-7020 device.