Bio-inspired motion detection in an FPGA-based smart camera module

Köhler T, Roechter F, Lindemann JP, Möller R. Bio-inspired motion detection in an FPGA-based smart camera module. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. 2009;4(1):015008.Flying insects, despite their relatively coarse vision and tiny nervous system, are capable of carrying out elegant and fast aerial manoeuvres. Studies of the fly visual system have shown that this is accomplished by the integration of signals from a large number of elementary motion detectors (EMDs) in just a few global flow detector cells. We developed an FPGA-based smart camera module with more than 10000 single EMDs, which is closely modelled after insect motion-detection circuits with respect to overall architecture, resolution and inter-receptor spacing. Input to the EMD array is provided by a CMOS camera with a high frame rate. Designed as an adaptable solution for different engineering applications and as a testbed for biological models, the EMD detector type and parameters such as the EMD time constants, the motion-detection directions and the angle between correlated receptors are reconfigurable online. This allows a flexible and simultaneous detection of complex motion fields such as translation, rotation and looming, such that various tasks, e. g., obstacle avoidance, height/distance control or speed regulation can be performed by the same compact device

BIO-INSPIRED OPTICAL FLOW CIRCUITS FOR THE VISUAL GUIDANCE OF MICRO-AIR VEHICLES

International audienceIn 1986, Franceschini et al. built an optronic velocity sensor [11], the principle of which was based on the findings they had recently made on fly EMDs by performing electrophysiological recordings on single neurons while concomitantly applying optical microstimuli to single photoreceptor cells [12]. As early as 1989, a battery of 110 velocity sensors of this kind was used to enable a small autonomous mobile robot to steer its way through an unknown field full of obstacles at a relatively high speed (50 cm/s), based on optic flow measurements [1-2]. Later on, several electronic EMDs based on sensors such as the Reichardt correlation sensor [13] or Franceschini et al's 1986 velocity sensor [14] were developed to serve as smart VLSI circuits