embedded systems and edge computing event... · 2018. 7. 4. · proprietary - company confidential...

Embedded Systems and Edge Computing

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Proprietary - Company Confidential ©2018 FLIR Systems Inc. Information and equipment described herein may require US Government

authorization for export purposes. Diversion contrary to US law is prohibited.

What is an Embedded System?

• Embedded Systems encompass a very wide range of hardware

• Single Board Computers (SBC)

• System on Module (SOM) and carried boards

• ARM and x64 architectures

• Windows and Linux

Minnowboard Turbot

1.9 GHz Intel Atom CPU

Raspberry Pi 3

1.2 GHz Broadcom BCM2837

SOC

Odroid-XU4

2 GHz Samsung

Exynos 5422 SOC

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The System on Chip is the core of many single board computers

• The “typical” embedded platform is a single board computer based on ARM System

On Chip (SOC), running a lightweight Linux distribution

• Many embedded systems use SOCs originally designed for mobile phones and

tablets

• SOCs package CPU, Memory, I/O and signal processing onto a single chip

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Single Board Computers• General purpose

• Inexpensive

• Whole system supported by manufacturer and often by a large community

• Accessories for many SBCs are widely available

• Some SBCs share a common footprint and GPIO layout enabling cross-compatibility of expansion boards

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Single Board Computer Limitations

• ARM SOC based systems are not as powerful as x64 PCs

• Off-the-shelf SBCs will often have more connectors than will be required for a project

• Unused connectors take up space

• Off-the-shelf SBCs have a variety of different types of connectors, but may not have enough the required type

• Replacing or upgrading individual components is not possible

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System on Modules combine with carrier boards for flexibility at lower cost than fully custom hardware

+ =

• CPU/SOC, Memory and I/O controllers are build onto a compact module with a high density connector

• A separate carrier board is used to supply power and access the I/O

• Carrier boards can be used to quickly adapt an SOM to fit a specific application

• Less expensive at low volumes than custom hardware

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Board Level Blackfly S cameras are ideal for integrating into embedded systems

• USB 3.1 Gen 1 is ideal for embedded systems

• It has provides Direct Memory Access (DMA)

• Unlike GigE, no filter drivers are required

• Embedded systems are small, so cable lengths are rarely an issue

• Board level Blackfly S cameras are very compact

• FPC cable save even more space by eliminating bulky cables and connectors

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Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC) cables are compact, secure and reliable

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FLIR cameras have advanced onboard features to support embedded systems• Onboard image processing including debayering, sharpening, saturation, and gamma correction reduce host side

processing requirements

• Auto-algorithms manage exposure, gain and white balance

• These features can be enable by checking ISP Enable

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Embedded Systems for Edge Computing• Processing image data near cameras at the edge of networks eliminates the system latency inherent in cloud

computing systems

• Cloud computing is only needed for analysis and storage of information from wide geographic areas or over

long time scales

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Advantages of Edge Computing with Embedded Systems

Reduce bandwidth

Processing your data at the source, eliminates the

need for transmitting images back to a central

server. Since only actionable information is being

sent, far less bandwidth is required.

Reduce latency

Reducing the amount of data being sent away from the

edge speeds the system up, and minimizes delays

between images being captured, and information

arriving.

Improve privacy and

security

Sensitive information like license plates, and faces

are not transmitted.

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Applications for Edge Computing

Application Advantage

Intelligent

Traffic Systems

Lower bandwidth consumption, increase system

security, and minimize privacy risks

Industrial

AutomationLower latency and jitter to enable higher throughput

Autonomous

Vehicle Guidance

Minimize system latency to enable rapid decision

making on high speed vehicles, while eliminating

dependence on an always-on data connection

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Benchmarking Embedded Hardware

• The large variety of available hardware makes benchmarking embedded systems more complicated than PC-

based hardware

• Openbenchmarking.org provides a free set of cross-platform tools for benchmarking system

• Openbenchmarking.org also provides an archive of test results and the system configurations they were achieved

on

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Benchmarking is Not a Substitute for Testing your Application

• Benchmarks are a good way to compare the relative performance of SBCs prior to evaluating samples

• The tests from Openbenchmarking.org are generally intended to evaluate specific performance dimensions

• Results from a multiple tests are needed do draw meaningful conclusions

• While benchmarks are a good starting point, final testing should always be done on your application

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Key Performance Parameters for Embedded Systems

• CPU computing power

• Processing power for traditional vision applications

• Power consumption

• Important for ensuring the system is supplied with adequate power

• Power dissipation and cooling

• Memory Bandwidth

• The speed which the information can be moved into and out of system memory

• Memory bandwidth can become a bottleneck if it is insufficient to handle

• GPU computing power

• Acceleration of image display

• Acceleration of computing which benefits from highly parallel architectures

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Useful Benchmarks for Evaluating Embedded Systems

• CPU computing power

• x11perf (https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/x11perf)

• dcraw (https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/dcraw

• Memory Bandwidth

• Stream (https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/stream)

• cl-mem benchmark (https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/cl-mem)

• Nvidia CUDA GPU computing power

• SHOC Scalable HeterOgeneous Computing

(https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/shoc)

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https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/x11perfhttps://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/dcrawhttps://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/streamhttps://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/cl-memhttps://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/shoc



Thermal Design Power (TDP) Should Be Measured Directly

• Maximum amount of heat generated by a chip and is delivered in Watts

• Some manufacturers publish Thermal Design Power (TDP) specifications for processors and SBCs

• TDP is intended to be an average power use, but if often closer to idle to achieve better numbers

• There are no standardized test conditions, making comparing TDP numbers across different manufactures

unreliable

• Real-world vision applications may be demanding on system resources than manufacturer testing

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Benchmarks of common processors on embedded systems

• X86 CPUs are faster than most ARM SOCs

• The Nvidia Jetson TX2 is optimized for different performance characteristics than

other ARM systems

• It has a powerful GPU designed for highly parallel computing tasks

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embedded systems and edge computing event... · 2018. 7. 4. · proprietary - company confidential...

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