Event-Based Vision Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi 5

Prophesee has introduced the GenX320 Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi 5, marking a significant milestone as its innovative frameless sensing technology is now accessible to the Raspberry Pi developer community. This development opens up new possibilities for developers to leverage the breakthrough event-based vision sensor technology in a variety of real-time applications. The kit is designed around the GenX320 sensor, a compact and efficient sensor that directly connects to the Raspberry Pi 5 camera connector, enabling the development of applications for drones, robotics, industrial automation, surveillance, and more.

The GenX320 sensor stands out as the smallest and most power-efficient event-based vision sensor currently available. With impressive specifications such as a 320x320 resolution, dynamic range exceeding 140 dB, an event rate equivalent to around 10,000 frames per second, and sub-millisecond latency, the sensor delivers the performance required for demanding real-time applications on embedded platforms.

By providing efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly access to the advanced Metavision event-based vision platform through its OpenEB core, the kit empowers developers to create systems that capitalize on the benefits of event-based vision technology. This approach represents a departure from traditional frame-based methods, as event-based vision focuses on detecting changes in brightness (events) at each pixel rather than capturing entire images at once. This results in sensors that are faster, more data and power-efficient, and require less processing power compared to traditional sensors.

Luca Verre, the co-founder and CEO of Prophesee, expressed enthusiasm about the launch, stating, "This release brings our pioneering approach to a highly engaged global developer community that is already exploring the possibilities of embedded and edge applications. With the GenX320 Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi 5, we are democratizing event-based vision technology, making it more accessible and user-friendly than ever before."

The GenX320 Starter Kit is tailored to support real-world, real-time applications where traditional frame-based vision systems encounter limitations. These applications include obstacle avoidance and drone-to-drone tracking in drones and robotics, 3D scanning and defect detection in industrial IoT, as well as intrusion detection and motion analytics in surveillance and safety systems. Key features of the kit include a compact event-based camera module with MIPI CSI-2 interface, seamless integration with Raspberry Pi 5 (board sold separately), power-efficient operation with sensor-only consumption below 50 mW, and OpenEB support with Python and C++ APIs. Developers can access drivers, data recording, replay, and visualization tools on GitHub to facilitate their projects.