A NAS-smart photo frame integrated device based on hardware deep fusion

Abstract

The application discloses a NAS-intelligent photo frame integrated device based on hardware deep fusion, which comprises a hardware component and a software component running on the hardware component. The hardware component adopts a highly integrated single mainboard design, and a system on chip integrating a CPU, a GPU and an NPU is arranged on the mainboard, directly connected with a NAS storage pool constructed by a storage device and a display unit, and powered through a unified power module. The software component is based on a unified operating system, adopts a containerization technology to respectively deploy a NAS service container and an intelligent photo frame application container, establishes a direct data path based on shared memory mapping through an internal data exchange bus service, and realizes low-delay data exchange between the storage and display modules. The device is also provided with a resource scheduling manager, which can dynamically allocate computing resources and I / O bandwidth according to real-time load. The application realizes dynamic scheduling of resources of storage, management and display functions, direct data interaction without a network protocol stack, and provides unified and smooth user experience.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to a smart home storage and display device, and more particularly to an integrated device combining a NAS and a smart photo frame based on deep hardware integration. Background Technology

[0002] With the increase in digital media content, home users generally need two types of devices: one is network attached storage (NAS) devices for centralized backup and storage of photos and videos; the other is smart photo frames for displaying this content in the home environment. Currently, these two types of devices are independent products on the market, requiring users to purchase, deploy, and manage them separately, leading to the following prominent problems: 1. Cost and deployment burden: Independent devices require repeated investment in hardware (such as motherboards, processors, and power modules), resulting in high purchase costs, complicated wiring, and occupying physical space; 2. Data transmission bottleneck: Data flow between the NAS and the smart photo frame relies on the home router's wireless network for transmission, introducing network protocol stack overhead, resulting in significant latency and intense bandwidth competition, especially prone to stuttering when transmitting high-definition media content; 3. Energy efficiency and resource conflicts: Independent operation of the two devices leads to higher overall power consumption, and when the NAS is performing background tasks, it may compete for system I / O resources, affecting the real-time rendering of media in the photo frame; 4. Fragmented experience: Two independent operating systems and management interfaces force users to configure storage parameters and display settings separately, making operation cumbersome and lacking a unified interaction logic, resulting in a fragmented user experience.

[0003] In existing technologies, some solutions attempt to mitigate the aforementioned problems through software-level optimization. For example, using the WebDAV protocol or FUSE architecture to connect a smart photo frame to a NAS within the same local area network enables basic file sharing. However, such solutions only address network reachability issues and do not address fundamental shortcomings such as hardware redundancy, resource contention, and fragmented user experience. Summary of the Invention

[0004] Purpose of the invention: The purpose of this invention is to provide a NAS-smart photo frame integrated device with highly integrated hardware, unified software management, and internal data exchange.

[0005] Technical solution: The NAS-smart photo frame integrated device based on deep hardware integration described in this invention includes hardware components and software components running on the hardware components;

[0006] The hardware components include an integrated motherboard, storage devices for constructing a network-attached storage pool, a power module, and at least one display unit; the integrated motherboard is equipped with a central processing unit, memory, a network interface controller, a storage controller, and a display output interface; the storage controller is directly connected to at least one of the storage devices; the display unit is directly connected to the display output interface;

[0007] The software components include a unified operating system running on the central processing unit, on which a NAS service container, a smart photo frame application container, and an internal data exchange bus service for establishing a direct data path based on shared memory mapping between the NAS service container and the smart photo frame application container are deployed.

[0008] Preferably, the unified operating system also includes a resource scheduling manager for dynamically allocating the computing resources of the central processing unit and memory, as well as the proportion of the storage device's I / O bandwidth between the NAS service container and the smart photo frame application container.

[0009] Preferably, the resource scheduler is configured to execute at least one of the following dynamic scheduling policies:

[0010] In response to detecting user interaction with the display unit, the proportion of graphics processor computing power allocated to the smart photo frame application container is increased;

[0011] In response to detecting that the NAS service container is performing a background task with high I / O load, the proportion of storage I / O bandwidth allocated to the NAS service container is increased.

[0012] Preferably, the central processing unit is a system-on-a-chip that integrates a general-purpose computing core, a graphics processing unit, and a neural network processing unit.

[0013] Preferably, the unified operating system also deploys a unified management interface for centrally configuring network-attached storage services and smart photo frame application services.

[0014] Preferably, the NAS service container runs at least one of the following: object storage service, file sharing service, and media streaming service.

[0015] Preferably, the smart photo frame application container integrates a hardware-accelerated multimedia decoding pipeline and an artificial intelligence image analysis module.

[0016] Preferably, the unified operating system is an operating system based on the Linux kernel that supports containerized operation.

[0017] Preferably, the internal data exchange bus service is configured to: receive a data request containing a file identifier from the smart photo frame application container, forward the request to the NAS service container, and trigger the NAS service container to map the data block of the corresponding file to the memory address space of the smart photo frame application container through a shared memory region.

[0018] Preferably, the display unit is a touch screen.

[0019] Beneficial effects: Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following significant advantages: (1) It realizes the deep hardware integration of NAS and smart photo frame functions, effectively eliminates the component redundancy of the traditional separate architecture, significantly improves the utilization rate of hardware resources and reduces the overall power consumption; (2) It does not require encapsulation and decapsulation of network protocols, solves the problem of latency and instability of wireless transmission, and ensures a smooth user experience; (3) It realizes the independent operation and fault isolation of NAS service and photo frame application, and can allocate computing power and I / O bandwidth as needed, effectively eliminate resource competition conflicts and ensure the stable operation of the system; (4) It realizes the deep integration of storage configuration, media management and display settings, greatly reduces the user threshold, and improves functional synergy and experience consistency. Attached Figure Description

[0020] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the hardware architecture of the present invention;

[0021] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the software architecture and data flow of the unified operating system of the present invention;

[0022] Figure 3 This is a comparison diagram of the data paths of the present invention and the traditional separation scheme. Detailed Implementation

[0023] The technical solution of the present invention will be further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0024] I. Hardware Configuration

[0025] As attached Figure 1 As shown, the hardware architecture of this embodiment is based on an integrated design.

[0026] (1) Core processor: A high-performance ARM architecture system-on-a-chip (SoC) is selected as the central processing unit, such as Rockchip RK3566. This SoC integrates an eight-core CPU, an ARM Mali-G610 graphics processing unit (GPU), and a neural network processing unit (NPU) for artificial intelligence inference.

[0027] (2) Motherboard and memory: An integrated motherboard is used, which is equipped with 2GB DDR4 memory.

[0028] (3) Network interface: The motherboard provides a 2.5GbE wired network interface as an external network port for connecting to a home router.

[0029] (4) Storage expansion: The motherboard integrates a SATA controller, which connects to a multi-bay hard drive backplane to build a network attached storage (NAS) storage pool through multiple storage device interfaces.

[0030] (5) Display Unit: The motherboard provides an embedded display port (EDP) interface for connecting a 10.1-inch IPS touch screen as a display unit.

[0031] (5) Power supply: The entire integrated hardware unit, storage device and display unit are powered by a unified 12V / 5A power adapter.

[0032] II. Software Architecture and Workflow

[0033] As attached Figure 2 As shown, the device runs a customized unified operating system based on the Linux kernel. After the system boots up, it simultaneously starts two core service containers using containerization technology (such as Docker).

[0034] (1) NAS service container

[0035] The container runs multiple daemons, including MinIO (providing object storage services), Samba (providing SMB file sharing services), and Jellyfin (providing media transcoding and streaming services).

[0036] This container directly manages all hard drives connected via the SATA interface, formats them as Btrfs file systems, and provides network storage, file management, and data services to the outside world.

[0037] (2) Smart photo frame application container

[0038] The container runs a dedicated photo frame application, which includes a Qt-based graphical user interface, a GStreamer multimedia pipeline that supports hardware decoding, and a lightweight AI image analysis module.

[0039] Its main function is to drive the display unit to decode, render and display multimedia content.

[0040] (3) Internal data exchange process

[0041] Communication between the two containers does not rely on the traditional network IP protocol. The operating system provides an internal data exchange bus service called "MediaPipe." This service is a high-performance inter-process communication (IPC) mechanism based on shared memory and semaphores.

[0042] The specific workflow is as follows: When the smart photo frame application needs to read a photo, it sends a request containing a file identifier to MediaPipe. MediaPipe forwards this request directly to the NAS service container, which then directly "maps" the corresponding file's data blocks into the smart photo frame application container's memory address space via a shared memory region. The photo frame application can then directly decode and render the data in memory, completely avoiding the packetization / unpacking overhead of the TCP / IP network protocol and the resulting latency and instability (see attached comparison). Figure 3 (As shown).

[0043] (4) Unified resource scheduling

[0044] System resources are managed and scheduled uniformly by a daemon process called "ResourceBalancer". This resource scheduler dynamically allocates computing resources for the central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and I / O bandwidth for storage devices according to preset policies.

[0045] Default strategy: By default, the system allocates approximately 70% of the GPU computing power to the smart photo frame application container to ensure smooth interface performance, while allocating approximately 70% of the storage I / O bandwidth to the NAS service container to ensure data service response speed.

[0046] Dynamic Adjustment: When the system detects user interaction with the picture frame via screen touch, ResourceBalancer instantly increases the GPU computing power allocated to the picture frame container to 90% to ensure a smooth interactive experience. When the NAS container performs high I / O load tasks such as full disk backups at night, the storage I / O bandwidth allocated to it will be increased to 85% to accelerate task completion.

[0047] III. Unified Management Interface

[0048] Users can access a unified web management interface via the device's built-in touchscreen or a browser on any device within the same local area network. This interface enables centralized configuration of NAS and smart photo frame functions.

[0049] Under the "Storage Management" tab, users can configure RAID modes and create and manage shared folders.

[0050] Under the "Frame Settings" tab, users can configure slideshow playback modes, playlists, and select the album source. The album source can directly point to a storage pool path managed and mounted by the NAS service container, such as " / mnt / storage-pool / FamilyPhotos", thus achieving seamless unification of storage and display management.

Claims

1. A NAS-smart photo frame integrated device based on deep hardware fusion, characterized in that, It includes hardware components and software components running on the hardware components; The hardware components include an integrated motherboard, storage devices for constructing a network-attached storage pool, a power module, and at least one display unit; the integrated motherboard is equipped with a central processing unit, memory, a network interface controller, a storage controller, and a display output interface; the storage controller is directly connected to at least one of the storage devices; the display unit is directly connected to the display output interface; The software components include a unified operating system running on the central processing unit, on which a NAS service container, a smart photo frame application container, and an internal data exchange bus service for establishing a direct data path based on shared memory mapping between the NAS service container and the smart photo frame application container are deployed.

2. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The unified operating system also includes a resource scheduling manager that dynamically allocates the computing resources of the central processing unit and memory, as well as the proportion of the storage device's I / O bandwidth between the NAS service container and the smart photo frame application container.

3. The integrated device according to claim 2, characterized in that, The resource scheduler is configured to execute at least one of the following dynamic scheduling policies: In response to detecting user interaction with the display unit, the proportion of graphics processor computing power allocated to the smart photo frame application container is increased; In response to detecting that the NAS service container is performing a background task with high I / O load, the proportion of storage I / O bandwidth allocated to the NAS service container is increased.

4. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The central processing unit is a system-on-a-chip that integrates a general-purpose computing core, a graphics processing unit, and a neural network processing unit.

5. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The unified operating system also has a unified management interface deployed for centrally configuring network-attached storage services and smart photo frame application services.

6. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The NAS service container runs at least one of the following: object storage service, file sharing service, and media streaming service.

7. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The smart photo frame application container integrates a hardware-accelerated multimedia decoding pipeline and an artificial intelligence image analysis module.

8. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The unified operating system is an operating system based on the Linux kernel that supports containerized operation.

9. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The internal data exchange bus service is configured to: receive a data request containing a file identifier from the smart photo frame application container, forward the request to the NAS service container, and trigger the NAS service container to map the data block of the corresponding file to the memory address space of the smart photo frame application container through a shared memory region.

10. The integrated device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The display unit is a touch screen.

Images