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FLIR Systems, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes technologies that enhance perception and awareness. We are a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance CMOS and CCD cameras for industrial, scientific, medical, traffic, and security applications. Our machine vision cameras offer a unique and comprehensive portfolio of USB 3.1, GigE, 10GigE and FireWire cameras known for their outstanding quality, ease of use, and unbeatable price-performance ratio. Whether you are designing machines for fruit inspection, developing the next generation of robots, or creating systems to survey our cities, FLIR cameras can help accelerate your development. FLIR’s industrial, visible light cameras combine the most advanced sensors with powerful features for both automatic and precise manual control over image capture and on-camera pre-processing.
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The Autonomous Vehicle
POSTED 11/17/2010 | By: Courtesy of AIA Member
The researchers at VisLab, a spin-off company of the University in Parma, Italy that specializes in vehicular applications involving both environmental perception and intelligent control, developed a prototype vehicle called BRAiVE (short for BRAin-drIVE). The off-the-shelf car is equipped with various 
sensing technologies for perception, navigation and control. The perception system is mainly based on vision, together with four laser scanners, sixteen laser beams, GPS, an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and full X-by-wire for autonomous driving. Ten cameras are used to detect information on the surroundings of the vehicle. The images are processed in real-time, together with information from the navigation system, to produce the necessary signals for steering and gas intake.
Four Point Grey Dragonfly2's are mounted behind the upper part of the windshield, two with color sensors and two with mono sensors. These cameras are used for forward obstacle/vehicle detection, lane detection and traffic sign recognition. Two Dragonfly2’s are mounted over the front mudguards, behind the body of the car looking sideways, and are used for parking and traffic intersection detection. An additional two Firefly MV’s are integrated into the rearview mirror to detect overtaking vehicles, and another two Dragonfly2’s monitor nearby obstacles during driving.
Images are acquired from the cameras via external trigger or in free-running mode, depending on the situation, using Format 7 Mode 0 (region of interest mode). The raw Bayer data is color processed on-board the cameras, then streamed at S400 speed over the FireWire interface to the vision system. Stereo algorithms are then used to reconstruct the 3D environment, and provide information about the immediate surroundings.
Market Intelligence News & Insights:
How Will Apple’s $500 Billion Investment for US Manufacturing, Education, and AI Play Out?
On February 24th, Apple announced a “commitment… to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years”, with plans for new manufacturing plants, enhanced support for manufacturing partners via their Advanced Manufacturing Fund, and a myriad of other initiatives. As part of this plan, Apple projects 20,000 new hires, with roles focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI/ML engineering.
“We selected Point Grey cameras for a number of reasons, most notably their outstanding image quality, the ability to control parameters such as shutter, gain, and white balance with custom algorithms, and the compatibility with ultra-compact M12 microlens mounts, which have played a key role,” explains Dr. Alberto Broggi, Director of VisLab. Paolo Grisleri, responsible for vehicle integration, adds, “The camera size for integration in the rearview mirrors, availability of third-party software for Linux, as well as good price/performance were other significant factors in our decision.”
The intelligent capabilities BRAiVE features include crossing assistance, obstacle and pedestrian detection, parking assistance, road sign detection, and lane markings, as well as stop & go and automatic cruise control. All sensors, actuation and control devices are perfectly integrated, giving passengers the feeling of riding in a normal car. BRAiVE was first presented to the press in a public demonstration on April 3rd, 2009 in Parma, Italy and presented at the 2009 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Xi’an, China.
“Artificial vision is a promising technology for cars, trucks, road construction, mining vehicles and indeed military vehicles, thanks to the low cost and great capabilities that vision sensors are currently demonstrating,” adds Paolo Grisleri. He is confident that the technology embedded in this vehicle will constitute the basis for developing innovative concepts for the car industry and full vehicle autonomy in the next few years.