A VLSI centroid extractor for real-time target tracking applications
The Automatic Centroid Extractor (ACE) is a CMOS VLSI chip that performs target extraction and centroiding functions for an extensible real-time target tracking system. Contiguous pixels whose intensities exceed a given threshold are grouped into separate objects, and three weighted sums of pixel intensities that can rapidly be converted to the target centroid and average intensity are calculated for each object. Proper assignment of contiguous pixels to their respective objects is guaranteed for all convex shapes and most concave shapes. Data for a NxM pixel image is processed in raster scan format with a maximum value of 1024 for N and M. ACE can process in excess of 500 objects per frame and accepts input at up to 20 Megapixels per second. To increase the flexibility of the chip, arbitrary circular regions of the image can be masked so that they do not enter the target extraction process. This allows any set of fixed targets to be ignored if they are not of interest. The chip is a full custom design containing approximately 200,000 transistors and is being fabricated using Hewlett Packard's CMOS40 process. The ACE chip interfaces directly to the Inmos Transputer over a serial link. The communication link is used to select the threshold and to specify the circular regions of the image that will be masked, as well as to transfer target centroids and status information. 2 refs., 2 figs.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE/DP
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 5653093
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-101751; CONF-890836--15; ON: DE89017894
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
420800* -- Engineering-- Electronic Circuits & Devices-- (-1989)
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
DATA ACQUISITION
DESIGN
DIAGRAMS
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
EQUIPMENT
FABRICATION
FLOWSHEETS
IMAGE PROCESSING
MICROELECTRONICS
MILITARY EQUIPMENT
PROCESSING
REAL TIME SYSTEMS
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
TARGETS
TRANSISTORS