Bioinspired Motion Detection Based on an FPGA Platform

Abstract

This chapter introduces mobile robotics as an application field of bioinspired computer vision methods. The combination of a bioinspired motion detection method and a very versatile design flow is presented. The implementation described here uses specific devices called field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Such a hardware design process allows an implementation which is very well adapted to an algorithm. The chapter provides a short motivation for hardware implementation of biologically inspired computer vision in motion detection. It presents an introduction to insect motion detection. The results of behavioral biology and neural biology studies are summarized. The chapter then presents an overview of findings on robotic implementations of biological insect motion detection. This includes solutions using FPGA and, therefore, a short introduction to FPGAs as well. The chapter describes an FPGA-based module implementing bioinspired motion detection. It finally shows experimental results of the motion detection module.