Automatically controlled pan–tilt smart camera with FPGA based image analysis system dedicated to real-time tracking of a moving object

• An intelligent, automatically controlled camera based on visual feedback.
• A system for acquisition, processing image analysis and a camera driver are implemented in the FPGA Xilinx Spartan-6 device.
• The FPGA device is connected directly to the eight independently operated SRAM memory banks.
• A prototype device has been constructed with a real-time tracking algorithm.
• The camera is able to keep a tracked object close to the center of its field of view.

This paper presents an intelligent, automatically controlled camera based on visual feedback. The camera housing contains actuators that change the orientation of the camera – enabling a full rotation around the vertical axis (pan) and 90° around the horizontal axis (tilt). A system for acquisition, processing image analysis and a camera driver are implemented in the FPGA Xilinx Spartan-6 device. An original, innovative reconfigurable system architecture has been developed. The FPGA device is connected directly to the eight independently operated SRAM memory banks. A prototype device has been constructed with a real-time tracking algorithm, enabling an automatically control of the position of the camera. The device has been tested indoors and outdoors. The camera is able to keep a tracked object close to the center of its field of view. The power consumption of the control system is 2 W. A reconfigurable part reaches the computing performance of 3200 MOPS.