Fuzzy ARTMAP-Based Fast Object Recognition for Robots Using FPGA

Fast object recognition and classification is highly important when handling operations with robots. This article shows the design and implementation of an invariant recognition machine vision system to compute a descriptive vector called the Boundary Object Function (BOF) using the FuzzyARTMAP (FAM) Neural Network. The object recognition machine is integrated in the Zybo Z7-20 module that includes reconfigurable FPGA hardware and a RISC processor. Object encoding, description and prediction is carried out rapidly compared to the processing time devoted to video capture at the camera’s frame rate. Benefiting from parallel computing, we calculated the object’s centroid and boundary points while acquiring the progressive image frame; all that was done with the intention of readying it for neural processing. The remaining time was devoted to recognising the object, this caused low latency (1.47 ms). Our test-bed also included TCP/IP communication to send/receive part location for grasping operations with an industrial robot to evaluate the approach. Results demonstrate that the hardware integration of the video sensor, image processing, descriptor generator, and the ANN classifier for cognitive decision on a single chip can increase the speed and performance of intelligent robots designed for smart manufacturing.