Emerging Areas in Embedded Imaging

Since Stone Age human being is seeking for new and betters ways to perform jobs, so developed advance tools and mechanisms to achieve high efficiency and performance, but the major hindrance to expand the scope-of-work and to achieve the desired level of efficiency was visibility.

Today lots of new technologies are getting developed to capture and process images to increase visibility for high efficiency and safety. Mission critical programs which are mainly fault-tolerant like machines diagnosing living body; UAVs (Unmanned Arial Vehicle) commissioned for surveillance; vehicles for safe transport and industrial machines for high efficiency & performance needs highly efficient imaging systems with advance feature and high level of accuracy.

CMOS and infrared sensors are two dominating technologies for capturing image; many big vendors have developed sensors of HD resolution with high refresh-rate and low power consumption which is highly suitable for small size; battery operated or handheld devices. These imaging devices are in-turn connected to other systems through network interface for transmission and archival of captured images /video.

Some of the highly demanded applications for such devices are volume rendering (3D/4D); image fusion; image filtering; pseudo colouring; video analytics; collision detection; pattern recognition; image stitching and database integration.

Apart from feature rich modalities these devices are networked, so a high demand is arising to make these devices complaint to standard imaging protocols so that it can transmit the processed image without any fault or modification.

Bundling of applications give holistic image of the region understudy, it develops panoramic/3D view for better visibility; recognize the changes in the region over a given period of time and calculate future changes vis-à-vis necessary actions required. It helps doctors performing image guided surgery/diagnosis for better control on the tools, Law enforcement agencies checking unlawful events, driver of the automobile for safe driving, production line manager checking quality control etc. Also, integration of database gives more clear idea about the final image with the information about key parameters and report.

The major challenge with such devices is accuracy of the final image. So, to address the pain points of OEMs and Tier-1s in imaging technology, R&D house like HCL Technologies is investing on intensive research to develop complex imaging algorithms and successfully implemented the same on various devices which are in the market with zero recall history.

The success of HCL Technologies vest with the intellectual pool of resources who very well calibrate all the parameters before designing the algorithms for every stage, starting from image acquisition, processing, communication, archival, retrieval and display. It needs intensive research on designing systems architecture for accurate and fast computation to achieve real-time performance, which is much need in mission critical programs.

So, in near future it’s expected that imaging industry will touch new heights with fast and accurate imaging devices.

To discuss further please write back to me about the new developments in embedded imaging.

- Sourabh Kumar Biswas
Imaging Consultant – HCL Technologies Ltd.
sourabhkumarb@hcl.com