Image acquisition card and image acquisition system

By introducing optical modules, data processing chips and PCIE interfaces into the image acquisition card, lossless high-speed transmission and pre-processing of image data are realized, and the problem that image acquisition cards in the prior art cannot meet the high bandwidth requirements of industrial cameras is solved, and data transmission reliability and processing efficiency of the host computer are improved.

CN223093820UActive Publication Date: 2025-07-11NANJING AXIS TECH CO LTD
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Patent Information

Application Number
CN202422332822.1
Authority / Receiving Office
CN · China
Patent Type
Utility models(China)
Current Assignee / Owner
Filing Date
2024-09-24
Publication Date
2025-07-11
Estimated Expiration
2034-09-24

AI Technical Summary

Technical Problem

Existing image acquisition cards cannot meet the high-speed and high bandwidth requirements of industrial camera output, resulting in packet loss and incomplete image data, affecting industrial production.

Method used

An image acquisition card is designed, including an optical module, a data processing chip and a PCIE interface, which realizes lossless and high-speed reception of image data through high-speed transmission channels, and an image processing module is set up in the data processing chip for pre-processing, reducing the burden on the CPU of the host computer.

Benefits of technology

It realizes higher bandwidth image data transmission reliability, improves the data processing efficiency and analysis accuracy of the host computer, and is suitable for various industrial machine vision scenarios.

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Abstract

The utility model discloses an image acquisition card and an image acquisition system, and the image acquisition card comprises an optical module which is used for transmitting image data acquired by an industrial camera to a data processing chip; the data processing chip comprises a high-speed transmission channel, an image processing module and an IO control module, the high-speed transmission channel is connected with the optical module, and the image processing module is connected with the high-speed transmission channel and the IO control module; and the PCIE interface is connected with the data processing chip and is used for realizing data communication between the data processing chip and an upper computer. According to the image acquisition card provided by the utility model, lossless and high-speed receiving of image data transmitted by the industrial camera is realized by arranging the high-speed transmission channel, the requirement of higher bandwidth is met, and the reliability is higher; the image processing module is arranged to preprocess the image data, so that the CPU load of the upper computer is reduced, the subsequent data processing efficiency and data analysis accuracy of the upper computer can be improved, and the system can be widely applied to various industrial machine vision scenes.
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Description

Technical Field

[0001] The utility model relates to the technical field of image acquisition cards, and particularly relates to an image acquisition card and an image acquisition system. Background Art

[0002] As a core component of a high-speed machine vision solution, the main function of an image acquisition card is to send the image data transmitted by an industrial camera to a host computer for processing, storage, and display.

[0003] In practical applications, with the continuous increase in the interface speed and transmission bandwidth requirements of industrial cameras, correspondingly higher requirements are also put forward for the interface speed and transmission bandwidth of the image acquisition card. In the existing image acquisition card solutions, the interface speed and transmission bandwidth of the image acquisition card cannot meet the requirements of high speed and high bandwidth output by industrial cameras, resulting in packet loss and incomplete image data of the image data transmitted by industrial cameras, thus affecting industrial production. Summary of the Utility Model

[0004] The utility model provides an image acquisition card and an image acquisition system. Among them, the image acquisition card realizes the lossless and high-speed reception of the image data transmitted by the industrial camera by setting up a high-speed transmission channel, meeting the requirements of higher bandwidth and having higher reliability; by setting up an image processing module to preprocess the image data, the burden on the host computer CPU is reduced, and the data processing efficiency and data analysis accuracy of the subsequent host computer can be improved, and it can be widely applied to various industrial machine vision scenarios.

[0005] According to one aspect of the utility model, an image acquisition card is provided. The image acquisition card includes: an optical module, a data processing chip, and a PCIE interface, where,

[0006] The optical module is used to transmit the image data collected by the industrial camera to the data processing chip;

[0007] The data processing chip includes a high-speed transmission channel, an image processing module, and an IO control module. The high-speed transmission channel is connected to the optical module, and the image processing module is respectively connected to the high-speed transmission channel and the IO control module;

[0008] The PCIE interface is connected to the data processing chip and is used to realize data communication between the data processing chip and the host computer.

[0009] In some embodiments, the data processing chip includes a programmable gate array chip.

[0010] In some embodiments, the high-speed transmission channel transmits the acquired image data to the image processing module through a high-speed serial interface.

[0011] In some embodiments, the high-speed serial interface at least includes: a high-speed SerDes interface.

[0012] In some embodiments, the IO control module includes a single-ended IO interface and a differential IO interface for communicating and controlling with external devices.

[0013] In some embodiments, the interface protocol of the PCIE interface at least supports: PCIE Gen3, and the number of channels at least supports: x8.

[0014] In some embodiments, the optical module at least includes a 40G optical module.

[0015] In some embodiments, the 40G optical module is provided with a plurality of QSFP optical fiber interfaces.

[0016] In some embodiments, optical fiber connection is made with an industrial camera through the QSFP optical fiber interface.

[0017] According to another aspect of the present utility model, an image acquisition system is provided. The image acquisition system includes: an industrial camera, a host computer, and an image acquisition card integrating any embodiment of the present utility model.

[0018] An image acquisition card provided by an embodiment of the present utility model includes: an optical module, a data processing chip, and a PCIE interface. Among them, the optical module is used to transmit the image data collected by the industrial camera to the data processing chip; the data processing chip includes a high-speed transmission channel, an image processing module, and an IO control module. The high-speed transmission channel is connected to the optical module, and the image processing module is respectively connected to the high-speed transmission channel and the IO control module; the PCIE interface is connected to the data processing chip for realizing data communication between the data processing chip and the host computer. In the image acquisition card of the present utility model, the lossless and high-rate reception of the image data transmitted by the industrial camera is achieved by setting up a high-speed transmission channel, meeting the requirements of higher bandwidth and having higher reliability; by setting up an image processing module to preprocess the image data, the burden on the host computer CPU is reduced, and the subsequent data processing efficiency and data analysis accuracy of the host computer can be improved, and it can be widely applied to various industrial machine vision scenarios.

[0019] It should be understood that the content described in this part is not intended to identify the key or important features of the embodiments of the present utility model, nor is it used to limit the scope of the present utility model. Other features of the present utility model will become easily understood through the following description. Description of the Drawings

[0020] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present utility model, the following will briefly introduce the accompanying drawings required for description in the embodiments. Obviously, the accompanying drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present utility model. For those of ordinary skill in the art, without creative efforts, other accompanying drawings can be obtained based on these drawings.

[0021] Figure 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an image acquisition card provided according to an embodiment of the present utility model;

[0022] Figure 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an image acquisition system provided according to an embodiment of the present utility model. Detailed implementation manners

[0023] In order to enable those skilled in the art to better understand the solutions of the present utility model, the following will clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present utility model in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present utility model. Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present utility model, rather than all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present utility model, all other embodiments obtained by those of ordinary skill in the art without creative efforts shall fall within the protection scope of the present utility model.

[0024] It should be noted that the terms "first", "second", etc. in the description and claims of the present utility model and the above accompanying drawings are used to distinguish similar objects, and do not necessarily need to describe a specific order or sequence. It should be understood that such data can be interchanged under appropriate circumstances so that the embodiments of the present utility model described herein can be implemented in an order other than those illustrated or described herein. In addition, the terms "comprising" and "having" and any variations thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, system, product, or device that includes a series of steps or units does not necessarily have to be limited to those steps or units clearly listed, but may include other steps or units not clearly listed or inherent to these processes, methods, products, or devices.

[0025] Figure 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an image acquisition card provided according to an embodiment of the present utility model. As Figure 1 shown, the image acquisition card includes: an optical module 10, a data processing chip 20, and a PCIE interface 30. The following will specifically describe the structural composition of the image acquisition card in this embodiment.

[0026] The optical module 10 is used to transmit the image data collected by the industrial camera to the data processing chip 20.

[0027] Specifically, in order to achieve high-speed and long-distance transmission of image data between the image acquisition card and the industrial camera, an optical module 10 can be set in the image acquisition card, so as to efficiently transmit the high-resolution and high-frame-rate image data collected by the industrial camera to the image acquisition card.

[0028] In some embodiments, the optical module 10 includes at least a 40G optical module.

[0029] Specifically, in order to enable the image acquisition card to adapt to various application scenarios and meet richer application requirements, the optical module 10 can at least adopt a 40G optical module, that is, ensure that the data transmission rate is at least 40Gbps; at the same time, corresponding types of 40G optical modules can be adopted according to actual application requirements. For example, 40G optical modules with corresponding interface types and channel numbers can be selected according to the transmission distance. This embodiment does not make specific limitations on this.

[0030] In some embodiments, the 40G optical module is provided with a plurality of QSFP optical fiber interfaces.

[0031] Specifically, the 40G optical module can be provided with several QSFP (Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable) optical fiber interfaces for efficiently receiving image data transmitted by one or more industrial cameras. Further, this embodiment does not make specific limitations on the number of QSFP optical fiber interfaces. For example, it can include at least 2.

[0032] In some embodiments, optical fiber connection is made with the industrial camera through the QSFP optical fiber interface.

[0033] Specifically, through the set QSFP optical fiber interface, the image acquisition card can be optically fiber-connected to one or more industrial cameras, so as to achieve high-efficiency and long-distance transmission of image data between the image acquisition card and the industrial camera.

[0034] The data processing chip 20 includes a high-speed transmission channel 21, an image processing module 22, and an IO control module 23. The high-speed transmission channel 21 is connected to the optical module 10, and the image processing module 22 is respectively connected to the high-speed transmission channel 21 and the IO control module 23.

[0035] Specifically, the data processing chip 20 may refer to the main control module of the image acquisition card, which specifically includes a high-speed transmission channel 21, an image processing module 22, and an IO control module 23. Among them, the high-speed transmission channel 21 is connected to the optical module 10 through multiple channels, and is used to transmit the image data received by the optical module 10 to the image processing module 22 for subsequent processing; the image processing module 22 is connected to the high-speed transmission channel 21, and is used to preprocess the image data transmitted by the industrial camera. For example, it may include, but is not limited to: data unpacking processing, point operations, statistical processing, feature extraction and other image processing operations. Further, it may also include advanced image processing operations such as image analysis, image understanding, and image recognition. The specific data processing operations can be configured according to actual application requirements, and this embodiment does not limit them; at the same time, the image processing module 22 is also connected to the IO control module 23, and is used to send the processed image data to the corresponding external device through the IO control module 23; the IO control module 23 is used to connect to the external device through various IO interfaces to enhance the device interaction ability of the image acquisition card.

[0036] In some embodiments, the data processing chip 20 includes a programmable gate array chip.

[0037] Specifically, the data processing chip 20 may use a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip as the main control chip of the image acquisition card, and a very mature FPGA solution on the market can be adopted. That is, this embodiment does not specifically limit the chip type and chip parameters of the FPGA chip.

[0038] In some embodiments, the high-speed transmission channel 21 transmits the acquired image data to the image processing module 22 through a high-speed serial interface.

[0039] Specifically, the high-speed transmission channel 21 can receive the image data transmitted by the optical module 10 losslessly and at a high rate by setting multiple High-Speed Serial Interfaces (HSSIs), and send the image data to the image processing module 22.

[0040] In some embodiments, the high-speed serial interface at least includes: a high-speed SerDes interface.

[0041] Specifically, the high-speed serial interface provided by the high-speed transmission channel 21 may at least include: a high-speed SerDes interface. Among them, SerDes (Serializer / Deserializer) is a high-speed time-division multiplexing, point-to-point serial communication technology, that is, at the sending end, multiple low-speed parallel signals are converted into high-speed serial signals, passed through the transmission medium (optical cable or copper wire), and finally at the receiving end, the high-speed serial signals are converted back into low-speed parallel signals. This point-to-point serial communication technology makes full use of the channel capacity of the transmission medium, reduces the number of required transmission channels and device pins, improves the signal transmission speed, and thus greatly reduces the communication cost. In this embodiment, the high-speed SerDes interface can support an interface rate of 40 Gbps and higher to ensure the reception of image data transmitted by the industrial camera at a high rate without packet loss, and at the same time support the function of retransmitting lost packets, ensuring the high reliability of data transmission.

[0042] In some embodiments, the IO control module 23 includes a single-ended IO interface and a differential IO interface for communicating and controlling with external devices.

[0043] Specifically, the IO control module 23 may be provided with a plurality of single-ended IO interfaces and differential IO interfaces for data communication and control with external devices such as a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and a display. In practical applications, the image acquisition card can be configured with an appropriate number and interface type of IO interfaces according to actual application requirements, thereby enhancing the communication and interaction capabilities between the image acquisition card and different external devices.

[0044] The PCIE interface 30 is connected to the data processing chip 20 for realizing data communication between the data processing chip 20 and the host computer.

[0045] Specifically, the image acquisition card is connected to the host computer through the high-speed PCIE interface 30 for transmitting the image data processed by the data processing chip 20 to the host computer for subsequent data processing, storage, and display.

[0046] In some embodiments, the interface protocol of the PCIE interface 30 at least supports: PCIE Gen3, and the number of channels at least supports: x8.

[0047] Specifically, the PCIE interface 30 can support PCIE Gen3 x8 and at least 50G bandwidth, thus enabling high-speed data transmission between the image acquisition card and the host computer. It can be understood that the interface parameters adopted by the above PCIE interface 30 are only examples. In practical applications, PCIE interfaces with other interface parameters can also be used. For example, the interface protocol can include support for PCIE Gen4, PCIE Gen2, PCIE Gen1, etc., and the number of channels can include support for x16, x4, x2, x1, etc. This embodiment does not make specific limitations on this.

[0048] The image acquisition card provided by the embodiment of the present utility model realizes lossless and high-rate reception of the image data transmitted by the industrial camera by setting a high-speed transmission channel, meeting the requirements of higher bandwidth and having higher reliability; by setting an image processing module to preprocess the image data, the burden on the host computer CPU is reduced, and the data processing efficiency and data analysis accuracy of the subsequent host computer can be improved, and it can be widely applied to various industrial machine vision scenarios.

[0049] Figure 2 This is a schematic structural diagram of an image acquisition system provided by the embodiment of the present utility model. As Figure 2 shown, the image acquisition system includes: an industrial camera 40, an image acquisition card 50, and a host computer 60. The structural composition of the image acquisition system of this embodiment will be specifically described below.

[0050] The industrial camera 40 is used to transmit the acquired image data to the image acquisition card 50;

[0051] The image acquisition card 50 integrates the image acquisition card described in any embodiment of the present utility model, and is used to preprocess the received image data and transmit the processed image data to the host computer 60;

[0052] The host computer 60 is used to further process the image data transmitted by the image acquisition card 50.

[0053] Specifically, the industrial camera 40 can be an industrial camera using a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) image sensor or a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) image sensor, and can transmit the acquired image data to the image acquisition card 50 at a high frame rate and high resolution; the image acquisition card 50 integrates the image acquisition card described in any embodiment of the present invention, and its specific structure can be referred to the above embodiment, which will not be elaborated here; the host computer 60 is connected to the image acquisition card 50 through a PCIE interface, and is used to receive the image data transmitted by the image acquisition card, and perform further data processing, storage, display and other operations on the image data.

[0054] An image acquisition system provided by an embodiment of the present invention, by introducing the image acquisition card of the present invention, can receive the image data acquired by the industrial camera losslessly and at a high speed, meeting the requirements of higher bandwidth and having high reliability; after preprocessing the image data by the image acquisition card and then transmitting it to the host computer for subsequent processing, the CPU burden of the host computer is reduced, enabling the host computer to reserve more CPU performance for backend vision analysis, improving the subsequent data processing efficiency and data analysis accuracy of the host computer, and can be widely applied to various industrial machine vision scenarios.

[0055] Note that the above is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and the technical principles applied. Those skilled in the art will understand that the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described here, and various obvious changes, re-adjustments and substitutions can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the protection scope of the present invention. Therefore, although the present invention has been described in more detail through the above embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments only. Without departing from the concept of the present invention, more other equivalent embodiments can be included, and the scope of the present invention is determined by the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. An image acquisition card, characterized in that, The image acquisition card includes: an optical module, a data processing chip, and a PCIE interface, where the optical module is configured to transmit the image data acquired by the industrial camera to the data processing chip; the data processing chip includes a high-speed transmission channel, an image processing module, and an IO control module. The high-speed transmission channel is connected to the optical module, and the image processing module is respectively connected to the high-speed transmission channel and the IO control module; the PCIE interface is connected to the data processing chip and is used to implement data communication between the data processing chip and the host computer.

2. The image acquisition card according to claim 1, characterized in that, The data processing chip includes a field programmable gate array chip.

3. The image acquisition card according to claim 1, wherein, The high-speed transmission channel transmits the acquired image data to the image processing module through a high-speed serial interface.

4. The image acquisition card according to claim 3, wherein The high-speed serial interface at least includes: a high-speed SerDes interface.

5. The image acquisition card according to claim 1, characterized in that, The IO control module includes a single-ended IO interface and a differential IO interface and is used to communicate and control with external devices.

6. The image acquisition card according to claim 1, wherein, The interface protocol of the PCIE interface at least supports: PCIE Gen3, and the number of channels at least supports: x8.

7. The image acquisition card according to claim 1, wherein The optical module at least includes a 40G optical module.

8. The image acquisition card according to claim 7, characterized in that The 40G optical module is provided with a plurality of QSFP optical fiber interfaces.

9. The image acquisition card according to claim 8, characterized in that, Optical fiber connection is made with the industrial camera through the QSFP optical fiber interface.

10. An image acquisition system, characterized in that, It includes: an industrial camera, a host computer, and an image acquisition card integrated as described in any one of claims 1-9.