A low-power SoC-based moving target detection system for amphibious spherical robots

A moving target detection and tracking system is critical important for autonomous mobile robot to accomplish complicated tasks. Aiming at application requirements of our amphibious spherical robot proposed in previous researches, a low-power and portable moving target detection system was designed and implemented in this paper. Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC (System on Chip) was used to fabricate the image processing system of the robot for detection and tracking. An OmniVision OV7670 COMS image sensor controlled by customized IP cores in the PL (Programmable Logic) of the SoC was adopted to acquire 640×480 RGB images at 30 frames per second. The Gaussian background modeling method was implemented with Vivado HLS in the PL to detect moving targets. And a FCT (Fast Compressive Tracking) tracker with motion estimation mechanism was running in the PS (Processing System) of the SoC to track targets captured by the detection subsystem subsequently. Besides, the dynamical power management (DPM) and the dynamical voltage frequency scaling (DVFS) mechanisms were used for a higher power-efficiency. Experimental results verified the validation and performance of the detection system. The design in this paper may have reference value for vision-based mobile robots or vehicles.