Analysis of ON Semiconductor RSL10 Smart Shot Camera Platform

ON Semiconductor recently announced the launch of the RSL10 smart camera platform, combining cloud-based AI with ultra-low power image capture and recognition to enable a new generation of IoT endpoints.

The RSL10 Smart Shot Camera platform adds AI-based image recognition capabilities to ultra-low-power IoT endpoints such as surveillance cameras, restricted areas, factory automation, smart agriculture, and smart homes. A companion smartphone app provides a user interface for the platform and serves as a gateway to cloud-based, AI-enabled object recognition services.

The platform brings together several innovations from ON Semiconductor, including the RSL10 SIP, which provides ultra-low-power Bluetooth low energy technology, and the ARX3A0 Mono 65° DFOV IAS module. The module is a compact prototype for developing compact cameras with 360 frames per second (fps) black and white imaging based on the ARX3A0 CMOS image sensor. These technologies, complemented by advanced motion and environmental sensors and power and battery management, provide a complete solution for autonomously capturing images and identifying objects in them.

EEWORLD contacted Jia Peng, marketing engineer at ON Semiconductor Asia Pacific Solutions Center, and interviewed him about the RSL10 smart camera platform. The following is the transcript of the interview.

1. Please introduce the development background and process of the RSL10 smart camera platform.

Jia Peng: The RSL10 smart camera platform is developed and designed by ON Semiconductor's European Solution Center. It is a smart camera platform product based on the RSL10 SiP and ARX3A0 ultra-low power camera. Users can learn about or purchase it through agents or log on to our official website www.onsemi.cn   .

Among the top ten strategic development trends for 2020 defined by the famous research organization Gartner, hyperautomation ranks first. The connotation of hyperautomation is to achieve "automatic automation", and the RSL10 intelligent shooting platform can well reflect this. With a variety of environmental sensors, it can provide vision-based artificial intelligence (AI) to the end as needed to achieve functions such as automatic object recognition and scene changes.

Typical applications include surveillance cameras, restricted areas, factory automation, smart agriculture and smart homes.

2. What are the best features of the platform? How can engineers better take advantage of these features?

Jia Peng: Multiple sensors. The acceleration sensor, PIR motion sensor, and temperature and humidity sensor allow users to set a start event/threshold for the camera. The camera will only start when needed, thus significantly reducing power consumption.

 Ultra-low power consumption. The RSL10 SiP is the industry's lowest power Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) system-on-chip (SoC), and the ARX3A0 image sensor also has ultra-low power consumption, with a maximum power consumption of no more than 3.2 mW at startup, and the low-power image processor SPC1100A provided by SunplusIT. Users can choose battery power (with lithium battery charging circuit and management function) or USB power supply.

High image quality. ARX3A0 is a black and white image sensor, which is very suitable for industrial vision applications. It can achieve global shutter at 360 frames per second, greatly reducing image distortion, while near-infrared technology improves its performance in low light. ARX3A0 is also very small (55 mm × 65 mm), suitable for many small space applications.

Cloud service. The platform is paired with our supporting APP, which allows users to control the camera through the BLE connection platform and use the Amazon cloud AI engine to recognize images.

3. This product integrates several products from ON Semiconductor and products from third-party partners. As a component supplier, why do you want to launch an overall solution?

Jia Peng: The RSL10 smart camera platform is not the first wireless sensor solution provided by our company. As a semiconductor company with tens of thousands of products, ON Semiconductor hopes and has promoted the overall solution to let more users know about our products. At the same time, a complete system solution with a friendly and easy-to-operate GUI (graphical user interface) can bring the most intuitive user experience. Secondly, as a fully verified product, its software and hardware reference design can greatly accelerate the customer's R&D progress, and these materials are free and open for download. Finally, ON Semiconductor is happy to cooperate with excellent third-party manufacturers to provide the most optimized solution.

4. How is the flexibility of this product reflected? Can secondary development be achieved based on this platform to meet more customized needs?

Jia Peng: I personally think that the excellence of the RSL10 smart camera platform lies in that it provides a way of thinking for hyper-automated applications: sensor trigger (condition) - shooting (action) - AI recognition - obtaining information. According to different application scenarios, users can conduct secondary development through the design materials that ON Semiconductor makes public for free. In addition, RSL10 supports firmware over-the-air upgrades (FOTA). The entire firmware upgrade process is based on the high transmission rate and ultra-low power consumption of Bluetooth 5, which is fast and efficient. Users can use the tools and sample codes provided by the RSL10 software development kit (SDK) to develop and generate firmware applications that support FOTA. These tools have been made public and available for download in our RSL10 column.

5. Will ON Semiconductor develop more types of product portfolios based on this platform in the future? Including functions such as sensors, processors or wireless connectivity?

Of course. We are about to release a color version of the smart camera platform. The biggest difference is that the new solution uses the newly released ARX3A0 Color and the overall solution has a smaller size. With the help of cloud service providers, it can be adapted to more scenarios that require image recognition.

In 2019, our company launched the first evaluation kit for the Strata design and development platform. The Strata kit is based on the RSL10 SoC and is a cloud-connected development software used to evaluate reference designs, evaluation boards, and development kits and provide automatic updates. So far, our solution center has launched nearly 10 Strata evaluation kits for different Internet of Things (IoT) markets, such as the multi-sensor control platform, the battery-free Zigbee smart home platform, and the BLE MESH platform launched last year. With Strata, users can more easily evaluate product operation and obtain design information, thereby accelerating their design efficiency.