The hottest kivasystems adopts blackfi

Kiva systems uses Blackfin's intelligent robot warehouse to navigate

the picture of thousands of robots consciously shuttling through the factory corridor is often depicted in classic science fiction. But for Kiva systems, a company based in Woburn, Massachusetts, Kiva mobile execution system (Kiva MFS) brings this dream into reality, which is a cutting-edge technology for autonomous mobile robots to improve the efficiency, speed, accuracy and flexibility of warehouse management

kiva's "robot" uses a vision system based on ADI's Blackfin Processor to realize intelligent navigation on the warehouse ground. When developing robots capable of managing large distribution centers for companies like Zappos and Walgreens, which need to manage and distribute millions of products on a daily basis, Kiva chose Blackfin, which has high performance, low cost and extensive peripheral connectivity. As the processor for the vision system of this kind of robot, "Kennedy said, the real-time image processing ability of Blackfin bf548 processor enables this kind of robot to operate quickly and accurately in the whole site, and directly provide inventory to workers

kiva MFS system can reduce the operation cost of products and respond to the requirements of customers quickly and efficiently. This system transforms the traditional execution operation from potential cost consumption to competitive advantage. Due to the addition of high-performance 533MHz Blackfin for image analysis and communication, 50% of the cost is saved and the performance of the new system is 8 times higher than that of its previous generation

in order to move quickly and accurately in the factory, the video system of this robot needs the ability to quickly process multiple input information, which is realized by using a processing platform that can reduce the total system cost. Kiva's previous generation robot vision navigation subsystem contains two independent processors (a DSP and a MCU), which is more expensive than the design using Blackfin. The single core of programmable Blackfin provides Kiva's development engineers with DSP and system control capabilities, as well as a wide range of integrated peripherals and simple and easy-to-use development tools. Kiva selected Blackfin to develop a new closely integrated fast vision module, which greatly reduced the cost of the bill of materials, and finally improved the performance of this video module and the entire MFS system to a new level

blackfin enables Kiva to save 50% of the cost and helps to improve the performance of the new system by 8 times compared with its previous generation

the two cameras of Kiva MFS system utilize the unique ability of Blackfin bf548 single core converging processor to perform control, signal and image processing, perform real-time image analysis to protect the wall insulation materials from ablation and burn through, and realize the communication protocol of interactive matching with the main controller of the robot. The camera sensor of this system performs two basic and independent functions: the upward camera reads the barcode of the data matrix, which can identify the unique shelf and realize the connection of the shelf. The downward facing camera processes coordinate point information to determine the position of the robot. The Blackfin Processor executes complex image processing algorithms for image acquisition, segmentation, sub-pixel target location, and data matrix code reading. The performance of this processor, high enough system bandwidth and on-chip memory can speed up image pipeline processing, so as to ensure dynamic, fast and efficient robot navigation

after choosing ADI's processor, Kiva adopted ADI's visualdsp++ (R) c/c++ compiler to migrate these algorithms from the previous generation platform to Blackfin. Other algorithms are in visualdsp++ number 4 In case of major failure of the experimental machine, contact the manufacturer of the experimental machine and develop it with the support of visualization tool, which supports drawing image histogram and can check, save and load test images during the development process

kiva also uses the Blackfin image processor toolkit, a set of self-contained image processing primitives designed to more quickly develop complex image or video processing solutions based on Blackfin. This toolkit has been optimized for operation on the Blackfin Processor Family, and Kiva adopts its Sobel_ M function applies the classical Sobel operator edge detection method to the obtained image

blackfin bf548's convergence architecture, processing capacity and a large number of peripherals enable Kiva to realize the product design with compact shape and high price performance. In particular, its on-chip sensor without gluing logic is connected to the temperature port of plasticine, powerful DMA engine, cache control and DDR DRAM controller, which provide a large number of functions and memory configuration capabilities, which are necessary to launch products with market competitive advantages. The ADI certified field application engineer of iResearch electronics provided Kiva systems with technical support for the process of component selection, software integration and hardware design throughout the product design

kiva company adopts the visualdsp++ integrated software development environment with debugger, c/c++ compiler, assembler, linker and simulator, which shortens the development time and reduces the development cost. Visualdsp++ is a member of the crossscore software and hardware tool series of ADI company. These tools also include the ez-kit Lite evaluation suite. All these tools help development engineers streamline the product development process and shorten the time to market

at present, this Blackfin based vision system is the standard configuration of all current mass-produced robots of Kiva company to ensure higher reliability and lower cost. Kiva helps its customers further reduce costs and improve production efficiency by using Blackfin as the core device of its robot