Design of Sobel operator based image edge detection algorithm on FPGA

Real-time image processing applications requires processing on large data of pixels in a given timing constraints. Reconfigurable device like FPGAs have emerged as promising solutions for reducing execution times by deploying parallelism techniques in image processing algorithms. Implementation of highly parallel system architecture, parallel access of large internal memory banks and optimization of processing element for applications makes FPGA an ideal device for image processing system. Edge detection is basic tool used in many image processing applications for extracting information from image. Sobel edge detection is gradient based edge detection method used to find edge pixels in image. This paper presents a design of a Sobel edge detection algorithm to find edge pixels in gray scale image. Xilinx ISE Design Suite-14 software platforms is used to design a algorithm using VHDL language. MATLAB software platform is used for obtaining pixel data matrix from gray scale image and vice versa. Xilinx FPGAs of family Vertex-5 are more suitable for image processing work than Spartan-3 and Spartan-6.