FPGA based reconfigurable platform for complex image processing

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are in use to build high performance DSP systems. FPGAs are uniquely suited to repetitive DSP tasks, such as multiply and accumulate (MAC) operations in parallel. As a result FPGAs can vastly outperform DSP chips, which perform operations in an essentially sequential fashion. The interfaces between FPGA and image sensor have been very slow, which inhibits possibility of exploiting parallel processing in the FPGA This paper discusses method to build an image-processing platform using FPGA. This involves interfacing of FPGA to CMOS image sensor and VGA monitor. We discuss techniques that helped attending speed of 50 FPS (Frames per Second) for an interface of CMOS image sensor to FPGA from earlier reported speed of 3 FPS. A benchmarking application has been executed on FPGA and DSP based system and comparative real time performance data is reported.