News: Optoelectronics
10 January 2020
Ambarella, Lumentum and ON Semiconductor collaborate on 3D sensing platform for access control and smart video security
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2020) in Las Vegas (7-10 January), artificial intelligence (AI) vision silicon company Ambarella Inc, Lumentum Holdings Inc of Milpitas, CA, USA (which makes lasers for industrial and consumer markets) and ON Semiconductor of Phoenix, AZ, USA (which supplies CMOS image sensors) demonstrated a new joint 3D sensing platform for the development of intelligent access control systems and smart video security products such as smart video doorbells and door locks. The platform is based on Ambarella’s CV25 CVflow AI vision system on chip (SoC), structured-light powered by Lumentum’s vertical-cavity surface-emittiing laser (VCSEL) technology, and ON Semiconductor’s AR0237IR image sensor.
Traditional structured-light solutions need to use both an infrared (IR) camera and a separate red-green-blue (RGB) camera and typically, a dedicated application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for depth processing. This new platform leverages a single ON Semiconductor AR0237 RGB-IR CMOS image sensor to obtain both a visible image for viewing and an infrared image for depth sensing. The Ambarella CV25 AI vision SoC powers depth processing, anti-spoofing algorithms, 3D facial recognition algorithms, and video encoding on a single chip, significantly reducing system complexity while improving performance.
“Lumentum has worked to enable diverse applications of our VCSEL technology into next-generation 3D sensing products,” says Dr Andre Wong, vice president, product line management 3D Sensing, at Lumentum. “We are excited to partner with Ambarella to help expand the use of 3D sensing in new applications including video security and more broadly AI vision,” he adds.
“ON Semiconductor’s RGB-IR sensor technology enables single-sensor solutions to provide both visible and IR images in security and vision IoT applications,” says Gianluca Colli, VP & general manager of ON Semiconductor’s Commercial Sensing Division. “Ambarella’s CV25 computer vision SoC, with its next-generation image signal processor (ISP), brings out the best image quality of our RGB-IR sensor, while providing powerful AI processing capability for innovative use cases in security applications,” he comments.
“We are delighted to partner with Lumentum and ON Semiconductor to deliver a hardware platform for the next generation of intelligent access control systems and video security devices,” says Ambarella’s president & CEO Fermi Wang. “Powered by Lumentum’s VCSEL solution, ON Semiconductor’s RGB-IR technology, and our CV25 SoC, it delivers 3D sensing with reduced system complexity as well as improved reliability and security.”
Ambarella’s CV25 chip includes a powerful image signal processor (ISP), native support for RGB-IR color filter arrays and high-dynamic-range (HDR) processing, which results in what is claimed to be exceptional image quality in low-light and high-contrast environments. The CV25’s CVflow architecture delivers the computational power required for liveness detection and 3D face recognition, while running multiple AI algorithms for features such as people counting and anti-tailgating. CV25 includes a suite of security features to protect against hacking including secure boot, TrustZone and I/O virtualization.
