Arduino Launches Ultra-Compact Dual-Core Nicla Vision Board for Computer Vision at the Edge
$115 entry in the Nicla family of boards includes integrated 2MP camera, IMU, microphone, ToF distance sensor, and crypto coprocessor.
Arduino has announced a new entry in its compact Nicla family of boards, this time bringing computer vision and machine learning to the edge via an integrated two-megapixel camera sensor and high-performance STMicroelectronics STM32H7 microcontroller: the Nicla Vision.
"This is a brand new, ready-to-use, 2MP standalone camera that lets you analyze and process images on the edge for advanced machine vision and edge computing applications," the Arduino Team claims of its latest launch. "Now you can add image detection, facial recognition, automated optical inspection, vehicle plate reading, gesture recognition, and more to your projects."
Using the company's smallest form factor, the 22.86×22.86mm (0.9×0.9") Nicla, the new Nicla Vision is powered by a dual-core STMicro STM32H747AII6 processor with 480MHz Arm Cortex-M7 core and a 280MHz Cortex-M4 core, 1MB of RAM, 2MB of flash memory, and 16MB of external QSPI flash for additional storage.
In addition to an on-board six-axis inertial measurement unit ()IMU), a time-of-flight (ToF) distance sensor, and a microphone, the board features a two megapixel colour camera sensor. There's a n XP SE050C2 cryptographic coprocessor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 Low Energy (BLE) connectivity, and a high-speed USB interface plus support for an optional 3.7V lithium-polymer battery with integrated charging and fuel gauge.
According to the Arduino team, the board includes OpenMV and MicroPython support, offers image detection and recognition, distance, sound, movement, and vibration data capture, and can act as a drop-in addition to projects built around the company's Portenta and MKR board ranges.
The launch of the new board follows the release of the Nicla Sense ME late last year, the company's first board to use the compact Nicla form factor and its first partnership with Bosch for integration of the company's sensor range.
"The Nicla form factor has been specifically developed at Arduino as a standard for wireless sensor networks," the Arduino team claimed at the time, "which can be adapted by partners to develop custom-designed industrial solutions."
More information on the board is available on the Arduino website, or it can be ordered direct from Arduino's store now for $115.
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