Flexelerator: Institut für Datentechnik und Kommunikationsnetze

Introduction

Future vehicle generations will be equipped with various sensor systems that produce large amounts of raw sensor data to support advanced drivers assistance systems. These systems aim to obtain an optimal perception of a vehicle's surroundings. Optical systems based on multi-camera setups produce an especially significant amount of image data. As image resolutions increase, powerful ECUs and computer architectures are required to process the image data in real-time, which is an inevitable requirement in a safety-critical automotive scenario.

In contrast to the resulting high processing demands, the electrical power budget in a vehicle is very limited. Therefore, standard processors and high performance GPUs are not viable solutions. FPGAs, on the other hand, are a strong candidate for potential future ECU architectures, as they provide comparatively large processing power combined with modest power consumption.

Therefore, the Institute of Computer and Network Engineering (IDA) and Volkswagen are working together on the conception and design of an FPGA-based architecture for camera-based driver assistance systems. In addition to the design of the computation platform, the key goals of the project are the development of an easy to use design environment and the implementation of selected algorithms from the field of environmental perception.

IDA Contributions

At IDA, two central aspects of the project will be addressed:

Data flow architecture: the weakly programmable FlexWAFE architecture, originally designed during the FlexFilm project, has been shown to be suitable for the acceleration of image processing algorithms in the past. Therefore, this architecture will be used as a basis and extended with regard to usability in order to obtain a simplified design approach for FPGA designs using weak programmability.
Design environment: an integrated design environment will be developed, since FPGA designs must currently be to a large extent manually and tediously assembled. This design environment will not only offer the possibility to compose an FPGA design, but will also provide possibilities to analyze the design with regard to resource utilization and timing behavior.

Other aspects, such as the concept of the platform, coupling with other ECUs and systems, the selection and implementation of image processing algorithms, and the integration of third party components will be covered together with Volkswagen. Additionally, there is a close relation to the Digital Chameleon project, which deals with methods and tools for an automated design process using the FlexWAFE architecture.

Project Members

Henning Sahlbach

Sean Whitty

Related publications

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Henning Sahlbach, Daniel Thiele and Rolf Ernst, "A System-Level FPGA Design Methodology for Video Applications with Weakly-Programmable Hardware Components", Journal of Real-Time Image Processing, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, März 2014.
@article{sahlbach2014systemlevel, author = {Henning Sahlbach and Daniel Thiele and Rolf Ernst}, journal = {Journal of Real-Time Image Processing, Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, month = 0, title = {{A System-Level FPGA Design Methodology for Video Applications with Weakly-Programmable Hardware Components}}, year = {2014} }
Henning Sahlbach, Stefan Wonneberger, Thorsten Graf and Rolf Ernst, "Exploration of FPGA-based Dense Block Matching for Motion Estimation and Stereo Vision on a Single Chip" in Proceedings of IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV), Juni 2013.
@inproceedings{sahlbach2013exploration, author = {Henning Sahlbach and Stefan Wonneberger and Thorsten Graf and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proceedings of IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV)}, month = jun, title = {{Exploration of FPGA-based Dense Block Matching for Motion Estimation and Stereo Vision on a Single Chip}}, year = {2013} }
Henning Sahlbach and Rolf Ernst, "Towards a Certifiable Integration of SRAM-based FPGAs in Safety-Critical Automotive Systems" in Proceedings of IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC), to appear, Dezember 2013.
@inproceedings{sahlbach2013towards, author = {Henning Sahlbach and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proceedings of IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC), to appear}, month = dec, title = {{Towards a Certifiable Integration of SRAM-based FPGAs in Safety-Critical Automotive Systems}}, year = {2013} }
Daniel Thiele and Rolf Ernst, "Optimizing Performance Analysis for Synchronous Dataflow Graphs with Shared Resources" in Proc. of Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (DATE), (Dresden, Germany), März 2012.
@inproceedings{thiele2012optimizing, address = {Dresden, Germany}, author = {Daniel Thiele and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proc. of Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (DATE)}, month = mar, title = {{Optimizing Performance Analysis for Synchronous Dataflow Graphs with Shared Resources}}, year = {2012} }
Henning Sahlbach, Sean Whitty and Rolf Ernst, "A High-Performance Dense Block Matching Solution for Automotive 6D-Vision" in Proceedings of Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE), März 2012.
@inproceedings{sahlbach2012highperformance, author = {Henning Sahlbach and Sean Whitty and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE)}, month = mar, title = {{A High-Performance Dense Block Matching Solution for Automotive 6D-Vision}}, year = {2012} }
Henning Sahlbach, Sean Whitty and Rolf Ernst, "A Flexible High-Performance Accelerator Platform for Automotive Sensor Applications" in SAE International Journal of Passenger Cars - Electronic and Electrical Systems, vol. 5, Mai 2012.
@inproceedings{sahlbach2012flexible, author = {Henning Sahlbach and Sean Whitty and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {SAE International Journal of Passenger Cars - Electronic and Electrical Systems}, month = may, title = {{A Flexible High-Performance Accelerator Platform for Automotive Sensor Applications}}, volume = {5}, year = {2012} }
Henning Sahlbach, Sean Whitty, Oliver Bende and Rolf Ernst, "A Scalable, High-Performance Motion Estimation Application for a Weakly-Programmable FPGA Architecture" in Proceedings of 20th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), August 2010.
@inproceedings{SWB+10:ScalaHighPMotioEstim, author = {Henning Sahlbach and Sean Whitty and Oliver Bende and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proceedings of 20th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL)}, month = aug, title = {{A Scalable, High-Performance Motion Estimation Application for a Weakly-Programmable FPGA Architecture}}, year = {2010} }
Stefan Wonneberger, Thorsten Graf, Henning Sahlbach, Sean Whitty, Oliver Bende and Rolf Ernst, "Real-time Image Processing for Camera-based Driver Assistance Applications" in Automation, Assistance and Embedded Real-time Platforms for Transportation (AAET), Februar 2010.
@inproceedings{WGS+10:RealtImageProceCamer, author = {Stefan Wonneberger and Thorsten Graf and Henning Sahlbach and Sean Whitty and Oliver Bende and Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Automation, Assistance and Embedded Real-time Platforms for Transportation (AAET)}, month = feb, title = {{Real-time Image Processing for Camera-based Driver Assistance Applications}}, year = {2010} }
Amilcar do Carmo Lucas, Henning Sahlbach, Sean Whitty, Sven Heithecker and Rolf Ernst, "Application Development with the FlexWAFE Realtime Stream Processing Architecture for FPGAs", ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems Special Issue on Configurable Computing: Configuring Algorithms, Processes and Architecture, vol. 9, No. 1, Oktober 2009.
@article{LSH+09:AppliDevelFlexWRealt, author = {Amilcar do Carmo Lucas and Henning Sahlbach and Sean Whitty and Sven Heithecker and Rolf Ernst}, journal = {ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems Special Issue on Configurable Computing: Configuring Algorithms, Processes and Architecture}, month = oct, title = {{Application Development with the FlexWAFE Realtime Stream Processing Architecture for FPGAs}}, volume = {9}, year = {2009} }

Flexelerator

Introduction

IDA Contributions

Project Members

Related publications

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