Field Programmable Gate Array–based Implementation of an Improved Algorithm for Objects Distance Measurement (TECHNICAL NOTE)

In this work, the design of a low-cost, field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based digital hardware platform that implements image processing algorithms for real-time distance measurement is presented. Using embedded development kit (EDK) tools from Xilinx, the system is developed on a spartan3 / xc3s400, one of the common and low cost field programmable gate arrays from the Xilinx Spartan family. Latency of the hardware is less than 100μs in 5000 clock cycles with 50MHz maximum frequency which is way less than MATLAB software performance about 82ms. Simulation and experimental results clearly indicate the potential of the presented FGPA-based platform for real-time distance measurement of images acquired from our camera setup. Thus, this platform can be used in any system with the needs of real-time or semi real-time machine vision.