SCAR - Super Cheap Artificial Retina Evaluation Board
The design goal of the SCAR board is to produce and market an AR evaluation board that can be sold at a single-unit price of under $100 US. This goal is achieved by requiring only the absolute minimum hardware, by using the parallel port of a PC as the controlling interface, and by generating all control signals in software. The SCAR software runs under both LINUX and Windows 98, is open source, and allows all operating modes of the M64283FP AR chip to be evaluated by a system designer, including the powerful image processing modes that are our strongest marketing differentiator. (SCAR : Super Cheap Artificial Retina AR: Artificial Retina - Mitsubishi's CMOS imaging sensor)
Background & Objective: The goal of the SCAR board project is to develop a hardware board and controlling software that can be used by Mitsubishi Electric Corp.'s USA marketing to leverage the Mitsubishi Electric AR chips into US markets by generating design wins with a low-cost evaluation board. We have beta-tested fifty SCAR boards in the US market, with a strongly positive response, and have been negotiating the sale of SCAR boards through a quick-response distributor in the USA. We hope the SCAR board produces strong growth in the US market for Mitsubishi AR chips.
Technical Discussion: In order to absolutely minimize the hardware cost of the SCAR board, only the minimum components are included, such as the AR itself, an inexpensive plastic lens, a pair of buffers, and an analog-to-digital converter. Power is supplied externally from a 9-volt battery. To minimize costs, no case is provided, and the circuit card is laid out without multi-layer techniques. The current design uses the M64283FP AR chip. All control signals for the AR are generated by running a program on a PC, under either LINUX or Windows 98. The PC program generates the timing waveforms in software, triggers the A/D converter, and captures the digitized image. The result is that software (which has zero per-unit cost and can be distributed by the Internet) replaces hardware devices that would increase per-unit price. In beta tests, we have achieved speeds of up to 7.5 frames/second with modern PCs. All of the image-processing modes of the AR chip are accessible, including edge detection, image enhancement, convolution, and baseline projection.
Technology Area: Computer Vision
Modification Date: September 12, 2007