VIA Technologies, Inc. (Germany) – Speeds up development of facial & object recognition systems for boosting public safety and consumer convenience.

VIA Technologies, Inc., announced that it will debut the VIA Smart Recognition Platform for high-performance computer vision systems and kiosks at Embedded World 2018 from February 27 to March 1. The VIA booth is located at #2-551 in Hall 2 of the Nuremberg Exhibition Center.

The VIA Smart Recognition Platform combines the leading-edge video, graphics, and compute capabilities of the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 820 quad-core processor with a wealth of camera and display integration, I/O enablement, and wireless connectivity options to provide a flexible and scalable path for building highly-sophisticated security, surveillance, traffic monitoring, building management, and consumer engagement system applications.

With its support for object and facial recognition, including emotion, age and gender detection, as well as people counting and tracking, the platform can be rapidly customized to meet specific installation and deployment requirements – ranging from office building access control and tracking systems for staff and visitors to retail signage kiosks that deliver personalized advertising and promotions to shoppers. Facial and object recognition speed and accuracy are ensured by the platform’s advanced AI algorithm.

“Computer vision technologies such as facial and object recognition are becoming a vital tool for boosting public safety and convenience everywhere from check-in counters and security screening in airports to self-service kiosks and payment authentication systems in supermarkets,” said Richard Brown, VP International Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “The VIA Smart Recognition Platform speeds up the development and deployment of tailor-made systems that harness these cutting-edge technologies to deliver innovative new customer services and experiences.”

VIA Smart Recognition Platform:
The VIA Smart Recognition Platform is based on the VIA SOM-9X20 system module powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 embedded platform. Measuring a mere 8.2cm x 4.5cm, the module features 64GB eMMC Flash memory and 4GB LPDDR4 SDRAM onboard and offers rich I/O and display expansion options through its MXM 3.0 314-pin connector, including USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, SDIO, PCIe, MIPI CSI, MIPI DSI, and multi-function pins for UART, I2C, SPI, and GPIO. It also provides a full set of advanced wireless connectivity features including GPS, BT 4.1, and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac through an integrated combo module featuring two antenna connectors.

The SOMDB2 multi-I/O carrier board is also available to accelerate system development. Customers can also utilize VIA’s extensive technical support and design assistance services to develop their own custom baseboard.

The VIA Smart Recognition Platform comes with a BSP that features Android 7.1.1 as well as the VIA Smart ETK (Embedded Tool Kit) comprising a number of APIs, including Watchdog Timer (WDT) for safeguarding against system crashes, GPIO access, RTC for auto-power on, and a sample app. A BSP supporting Linux Kernel 3.18.44 is also under development.

A full set of hardware and software customization services that speed up time to commercialization and minimize development costs is also available.