Tiny surveillance camera has Linux smarts
March 07, 2007
From: Linux Devices
Nuvation
is demonstrating an ultra-compact, Linux-powered, intelligent IP camera
reference design, at the TI Developer Conference in Dallas this week.
The engineering consultancy firm says its camera can encode and stream
D1 (720x480) video over Ethernet at 30fps.
The Nuvation design measures just 3.25 x 1.7 x 1.8 inches (79 x 43 x
47mm), yet it incorporates a full 300MHz ARM9 processor capable of
running Linux or another embedded OS, according to the company.
Compared to DSP-only cameras, this lets customers tune resolutions and
data rates as required, fuse codecs, or run image analysis applications
such as motion detection on the camera itself -- consistent with
security industry trends toward higher-quality "intelligent" cameras,
the company says.
The Nuvation design is based on a stacked arrangement of passively
cooled PCBs (printed circuit boards) measuring 38mm square. The design
draws less than 5 Watts, and supports Power-over-Ethernet.
Nuvation IP camera design
The Nuvation camera design is based on a TI TMS320DM6446, one of the
first shipping RISC/DSP SoCs (system-on-chip processors) in TI's
"DaVinci" line of video-enabled DSPs (digital signal processors) and
RISC/DSPs. The TMS320DM6446 weds a C64x+ DSP core, clocked at 594 MHz,
with a little-endian ARM926EJ-S core clocked at 297MHz.
daVinci DM644x architecture diagram
In addition to a TI DaVinci RISC/DSP chip, the Nuvation design also
incorporates Pixim's "Orca" chipset, said to implement patented image
processing features likely to increase the chances of positive subject
identification in video surveillance applications.
Nuvation iP camera block diagram
The Nuvation camera design is said to support codecs that include H.264, H.263, MPEG-4, and motion-JPEG.
Availability
Nuvation's IP camera reference design is available now for licensing.
The design includes PCB design source files, bills of materials,
optimized Linux board support package (BSP), Pixim processor firmware,
mechanical enclosure, design documentation, and support. Nuvation also
provides design customization and ODM production services, it says.
A similar Linux- and DaVinci-based surveillance camera reference design is available from Nexvision.
