Embedded Deep Learning Prototyping Approach for Cyber-Physical Systems: Smart LIDAR Case Study

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are a mature research technology topic that deals with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Embedded Systems (ES). They interact with the physical world via sensors/actuators to solve problems in several applications (robotics, transportation, health, etc.). These CPSs deal with data analysis, which need powerful algorithms combined with robust hardware architectures. On one hand, Deep Learning (DL) is proposed as the main solution algorithm. On the other hand, the standard design and prototyping methodologies for ES are not adapted to modern DL-based CPS. In this paper, we investigate AI design for CPS around embedded DL. The main contribution of this work is threefold: (1) We define an embedded DL methodology based on a Multi-CPU/FPGA platform. (2) We propose a new hardware design architecture of a Neural Network Processor (NNP) for DL algorithms. The computation time of a feed forward sequence is estimated to 23 ns for each parameter. (3) We validate the proposed methodology and the DL-based NNP using a smart LIDAR application use-case. The input of our NNP is a voxel grid hardware computed from 3D point cloud. Finally, the results show that our NNP is able to process Dense Neural Network (DNN) architecture without bias.