Implementation of Thermal Event Image Processing Algorithms on NVIDIA Tegra Jetson TX2 Embedded System-on-a-Chip

Bartłomiej Jabłoński,Dariusz Makowski,Piotr Perek

doi:10.3390/en14154416

Abstract

Advances in Infrared (IR) cameras, as well as hardware computational capabilities, contributed towards qualifying vision systems as reliable plasma diagnostics for nuclear fusion experiments. Robust autonomous machine protection and plasma control during operation require real-time processing that might be facilitated by Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). One of the current aims of image plasma diagnostics involves thermal events detection and analysis with thermal imaging. The paper investigates the suitability of the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 Tegra-based embedded platform for real-time thermal events detection. Development of real-time processing algorithms on an embedded System-on-a-Chip (SoC) requires additional effort due to the constrained resources, yet low-power consumption enables embedded GPUs to be applied in MicroTCA.4 computing architecture that is prevalent in nuclear fusion projects. For this purpose, the authors have proposed, developed and optimised GPU-accelerated algorithms with the use of available software tools for NVIDIA Tegra systems. Furthermore, the implemented algorithms are evaluated and benchmarked on Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator experimental data against the corresponding alternative Central Processing Unit (CPU) implementations. Considerable improvement is observed for the accelerated algorithms that enable real-time detection on the embedded SoC platform, yet some encountered limitations when developing parallel image processing routines are described and signified.

Highlights

Received: 31 May 2021Accepted: 19 July 2021Published: 22 July 2021Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Infrared (IR) thermal imaging nowadays is a non-destructive monitoring and measurement technique widely applied in both the industry and research
The highest performance mode for both Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) on Jetson TX2 is activated with commands sudo nvpmodel -m 0 and sudo jetson_clocks
The implemented algorithms are a subset of the whole processing pipeline, and additional algorithms must be applied for each frame to provide exhaustive image plasma diagnostics

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Infrared (IR) thermal imaging nowadays is a non-destructive monitoring and measurement technique widely applied in both the industry and research. Thermography enables one to observe the radiating surface of an object with a temperature greater than 0 K [1]. The image captured by an IR detector has to be pre-processed to take into account the observed body emissivity as well as device nonuniformities. With the advances in thermographic cameras and computational capabilities, it has become feasible to capture and process high-resolution images in real-time. Dedicated vision systems are one of the major diagnostics in large-scale physics experiments, especially in nuclear fusion projects [2,3,4,5]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion