scholarly journals A Survey about Intelligent Solutions for Autonomous Vehicles based on FPGA

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Ashraf Kasem ◽  
Ahmad Reda ◽  
József Vásárhelyi ◽  
Ahmed Bouzid

Abstract Safe driving and reducing the number of accidents victims have been the main motivations for researchers and automotive companies for decades. Today, humanity is very close to make the old dream of fully autonomous vehicles a reality, thanks to the rapid spread of AI (artificial intelligence) and the evolution of semiconductor technologies. But the real problem here is the increasing demand for computational power and that of course will increase power requirements, hence it will not be suitable for autonomous driving applications. GPU is not suitable for solving this problem due to its power consumption as well as heat generation. On the other hand, CPU also does not satisfy the performance requirements. For the above condition, FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) has drawn attention as a hardware accelerator since it features high performance with low power consumption. This paper reviews the common solutions involving artificial intelligence implemented on FPGA for autonomous vehicle applications. Research, development, and current trends related to the topic are emphasized.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (14) ◽  
pp. 3969
Author(s):  
Hongzhi Huang ◽  
Yakun Wu ◽  
Mengqi Yu ◽  
Xuesong Shi ◽  
Fei Qiao ◽  
...  

Visual semantic segmentation, which is represented by the semantic segmentation network, has been widely used in many fields, such as intelligent robots, security, and autonomous driving. However, these Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based networks have high requirements for computing resources and programmability for hardware platforms. For embedded platforms and terminal devices in particular, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based computing platforms cannot meet these requirements in terms of size and power consumption. In contrast, the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based hardware system not only has flexible programmability and high embeddability, but can also meet lower power consumption requirements, which make it an appropriate solution for semantic segmentation on terminal devices. In this paper, we demonstrate EDSSA—an Encoder-Decoder semantic segmentation networks accelerator architecture which can be implemented with flexible parameter configurations and hardware resources on the FPGA platforms that support Open Computing Language (OpenCL) development. We introduce the related technologies, architecture design, algorithm optimization, and hardware implementation of the Encoder-Decoder semantic segmentation network SegNet as an example, and undertake a performance evaluation. Using an Intel Arria-10 GX1150 platform for evaluation, our work achieves a throughput higher than 432.8 GOP/s with power consumption of about 20 W, which is a 1.2× times improvement the energy-efficiency ratio compared to a high-performance GPU.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 5053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saba Arshad ◽  
Muhammad Sualeh ◽  
Dohyeong Kim ◽  
Dinh Van Nam ◽  
Gon-Woo Kim

In recent years, research and development of autonomous driving technology have gained much interest. Many autonomous driving frameworks have been developed in the past. However, building a safely operating fully functional autonomous driving framework is still a challenge. Several accidents have been occurred with autonomous vehicles, including Tesla and Volvo XC90, resulting in serious personal injuries and death. One of the major reasons is the increase in urbanization and mobility demands. The autonomous vehicle is expected to increase road safety while reducing road accidents that occur due to human errors. The accurate sensing of the environment and safe driving under various scenarios must be ensured to achieve the highest level of autonomy. This research presents Clothoid, a unified framework for fully autonomous vehicles, that integrates the modules of HD mapping, localization, environmental perception, path planning, and control while considering the safety, comfort, and scalability in the real traffic environment. The proposed framework enables obstacle avoidance, pedestrian safety, object detection, road blockage avoidance, path planning for single-lane and multi-lane routes, and safe driving of vehicles throughout the journey. The performance of each module has been validated in K-City under multiple scenarios where Clothoid has been driven safely from the starting point to the goal point. The vehicle was one of the top five to successfully finish the autonomous vehicle challenge (AVC) in the Hyundai AVC.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riadh Ayachi ◽  
Yahia ElFahem Said ◽  
Mohamed Atri

Autonomous vehicle is a vehicle that can guide itself without human conduction. It is capable of sensing its environment and moving with little or no human input. This kind of vehicle has become a concrete reality and may pave the way for future systems where computers take over the art of driving. Advanced artificial intelligence control systems interpret sensory information to identify appropriate navigation paths, as well as obstacles and relevant road signs. In this paper, we introduce an intelligent road signs classifier to help autonomous vehicles to recognize and understand road signs. The road signs classifier will be based on an artificial intelligence technique. In particular, a deep learning model is used, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). CNN is a widely used Deep Learning model to solve pattern recognition problems like image classification and object detection. CNN has been successfully used to solve computer vision problems because of its methodology in processing images which is similar to the human brain decision making. The evaluation of the proposed pipeline is proved using two different datasets. The proposed CNNs achieved high performance in road sign classification with a validation accuracy of 99.8% and a testing accuracy of 99.6%. The proposed method can be easily implemented for real-time application.


2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (12) ◽  
pp. S21-S23
Author(s):  
Ross Mckenzie ◽  
John Mcphee

This article presents an overview of the research and educational programs for connected and autonomous vehicles at the University of Waterloo (UWaterloo). UWaterloo is Canada’s largest engineering school, with 9,500 engineering students and 309 engineering faculty. The University of Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research (WatCAR) for faculty, staff and students is contributing to the development of in-vehicle systems education programs for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) at Waterloo. Over 130 Waterloo faculty, 110 from engineering, are engaged in WatCAR’s automotive and transportation systems research programs. The school’s CAV efforts leverage WatCAR research expertise from five areas: (1) Connected and Autonomous; (2) Software and Data; (3) Lightweighting and Fabrication; (4) Structure and Safety; and (5) Advanced Powertrain and Emissions. Foundational and operational artificial intelligence expertise from the University of Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute complements the autonomous driving efforts, in disciplines that include neural networks, pattern analysis and machine learning.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (20) ◽  
pp. 6733
Author(s):  
Min-Joong Kim ◽  
Sung-Hun Yu ◽  
Tong-Hyun Kim ◽  
Joo-Uk Kim ◽  
Young-Min Kim

Today, a lot of research on autonomous driving technology is being conducted, and various vehicles with autonomous driving functions, such as ACC (adaptive cruise control) are being released. The autonomous vehicle recognizes obstacles ahead by the fusion of data from various sensors, such as lidar and radar sensors, including camera sensors. As the number of vehicles equipped with such autonomous driving functions increases, securing safety and reliability is a big issue. Recently, Mobileye proposed the RSS (responsibility-sensitive safety) model, which is a white box mathematical model, to secure the safety of autonomous vehicles and clarify responsibility in the case of an accident. In this paper, a method of applying the RSS model to a variable focus function camera that can cover the recognition range of a lidar sensor and a radar sensor with a single camera sensor is considered. The variables of the RSS model suitable for the variable focus function camera were defined, the variable values were determined, and the safe distances for each velocity were derived by applying the determined variable values. In addition, as a result of considering the time required to obtain the data, and the time required to change the focal length of the camera, it was confirmed that the response time obtained using the derived safe distance was a valid result.


Author(s):  
Jay Rodge ◽  
Swati Jaiswal

Deep learning and Artificial intelligence (AI) have been trending these days due to the capability and state-of-the-art results that they provide. They have replaced some highly skilled professionals with neural network-powered AI, also known as deep learning algorithms. Deep learning majorly works on neural networks. This chapter discusses about the working of a neuron, which is a unit component of neural network. There are numerous techniques that can be incorporated while designing a neural network, such as activation functions, training, etc. to improve its features, which will be explained in detail. It has some challenges such as overfitting, which are difficult to neglect but can be overcome using proper techniques and steps that have been discussed. The chapter will help the academician, researchers, and practitioners to further investigate the associated area of deep learning and its applications in the autonomous vehicle industry.


In this paper, we propose a method to automatically segment the road area from the input road images to support safe driving of autonomous vehicles. In the proposed method, the semantic segmentation network (SSN) is trained by using the deep learning method and the road area is segmented by utilizing the SSN. The SSN uses the weights initialized from the VGC-16 network to create the SegNet network. In order to fast the learning time and to obtain results, the class is simplified and learned so that it can be divided into two classes as the road area and the non-road area in the trained SegNet CNN network. In order to improve the accuracy of the road segmentation result, the boundary line of the road region with the straight-line component is detected through the Hough transform and the result is shown by dividing the accurate road region by combining with the segmentation result of the SSN. The proposed method can be applied to safe driving support by autonomously driving the autonomous vehicle by automatically classifying the road area during operation and applying it to the road area departure warning system


Self-driving automobiles are understandably the most attention grabbing utility of artificial intelligence. Until recently, we have just considered the prototypes of these cars in Sci-fi movies, with the whole thing else left to our imagination. But with advances in technology, this super notion has acquired a lifestyles of its own. Autonomous vehicle promises to improve traffic safety while at the same time, it must increase the fuel efficiency, reduce congestion and arrive to the destination at a minimum time span. We propose a novel technique to boost the algorithm to take the shortest path while the vehicle is in movement.


With the crisis of power across the globe, green communication and power-efficient devices are getting more and more attention. This work emphasis about the implementation of Control Unit (CU) circuit on FPGA kit. In this project, power consumption of CU circuit is analyzed by changing the different Input/Output (I/O) standards of FPGA. This project is implemented on Xilinx 14.1 tool and the power consumption on CU is calculated with X Power Analyzer tool on 28-Nano-Meter (nm) Artix-7 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Out of different I/O standards, CU circuit is most power efficient with LVCMOS I/O standard on Artix-7 FPGA


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 5706
Author(s):  
Sanghoon Lee ◽  
Dongkyu Lee ◽  
Pyung Choi ◽  
Daejin Park

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors help autonomous vehicles detect the surrounding environment and the exact distance to an object’s position. Conventional LiDAR sensors require a certain amount of power consumption because they detect objects by transmitting lasers at a regular interval according to a horizontal angular resolution (HAR). However, because the LiDAR sensors, which continuously consume power inefficiently, have a fatal effect on autonomous and electric vehicles using battery power, power consumption efficiency needs to be improved. In this paper, we propose algorithms to improve the inefficient power consumption of conventional LiDAR sensors, and efficiently reduce power consumption in two ways: (a) controlling the HAR to vary the laser transmission period (TP) of a laser diode (LD) depending on the vehicle’s speed and (b) reducing the static power consumption using a sleep mode, depending on the surrounding environment. The proposed LiDAR sensor with the HAR control algorithm reduces the power consumption of the LD by 6.92% to 32.43% depending on the vehicle’s speed, compared to the maximum number of laser transmissions (Nx.max). The sleep mode with a surrounding environment-sensing algorithm reduces the power consumption by 61.09%. The algorithm of the proposed LiDAR sensor was tested on a commercial processor chip, and the integrated processor was designed as an IC using the Global Foundries 55 nm CMOS process.


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