Field programmable gate array based hardware implementation of a gradient filter for edge detection in colour images with subpixel precision

Within the field of industrial image processing the use of colour cameras becomes ever more common. Increasingly the established black and white cameras are replaced by economical single-chip colour cameras with Bayer pattern. The use of the additional colour information is particularly important for recognition or inspection. Become interesting however also for the geometric metrology, if measuring tasks can be solved more robust or more exactly. However only few suitable algorithms are available, in order to detect edges with the necessary precision. All attempts require however additional computation expenditure. On the basis of a new filter for edge detection in colour images with subpixel precision, the implementation on a pre-processing hardware platform is presented. Hardware implemented filters offer the advantage that they can be used easily with existing measuring software, since after the filtering a single channel image is present, which unites the information of all colour channels. Advanced field programmable gate arrays represent an ideal platform for the parallel processing of multiple channels. The effective implementation presupposes however a high programming expenditure. On the example of the colour filter implementation, arising problems are analyzed and the chosen solution method is presented.