Based on an iteration of the company’s Hummingboard development platform and equipped with an i.MX 8M Plus SOM and Hailo-8 AI processor, this is a deployment-ready solution that will help engineers to dramatically reduce time to market for new products capable of powerful AI inference at the edge.
The Hummingboard 8P Edge AI serves as a foundation for a wide range of applications, including computer vision, image and object recognition, surveillance, smart cities, and IoT. This SBC kit can connect two cameras, supporting Basler MIPI-CSI cameras or USB 3.0 cameras for powerful computer vision applications, and can even support AI analysis of streaming video. It can also be used with an HDMI/USB touchscreen display for interactive AI applications.
According to Sasha Strizhiver, embedded product line manager at SolidRun, “Our vision has always been to simplify the complex world of embedded systems and empower engineers to innovate without constraints. Our new Hummingboard 8P Edge AI SBC encapsulates this vision, offering a total package that combines cutting-edge AI inference capabilities and broad industry support with ease of use.”
At the heart of the kit is the is SolidRun’s ultra-powerful, energy-efficient i.MX 8M Plus SOM, which is empowered by a Hailo-8 M.2 PCIe module capable of up to 28 TOPS (26 TOPs coming from Hailo-8 and 2 from i.mx8M Plus). Combined, the total package, including the carrier board, runs at a low maximum draw of just 10 watts. This performance-to-power ratio is being described as a ‘game-changer’ in the AI industry, enabling engineers to create unique AI solutions with unprecedented edge inference capabilities while being seamlessly powered over PoE.
The Hailo-8 AI accelerator boasts a proprietary dataflow architecture, setting it apart from most neural processors based on more common architectures. This proprietary architecture excels in low-power memory access, thanks to its combination of purpose-built pipeline elements and a distributed memory fabric.
This SBC solution supports a variety of popular AI frameworks, including TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, Keras, PyTorch, and ONNX, allowing engineers to jumpstart their AI projects without the hassle of framework compatibility issues.
The kit offers several unique advantages, including the ability to run lightweight machine learning models on the i.MX 8M Plus SoC’s embedded network accelerator, and complex models on the Hailo-8 AI accelerator, opening a world of possibilities for AI application development and testing.
SolidRun is providing everything engineers need to get started in the included Board Support Package (BSP). With the BSP pre-loaded on an SD card, setup is quick and easy, allowing users to quickly jump into testing their AI models with the Hailo-8 processor.
Measuring in at just 100mm x 70mm, the Hummingboard 8P Edge AI is very compact. SolidRun also offers a compact aluminium enclosure, turning it into a NUC-style computer. As with most SolidRun solutions, this kit was engineered to endure a broad range of environmental conditions, supporting commercial applications with temperatures ranging from 0° to 70° C, and industrial applications with temperatures ranging from -40° to 85° C.
This kit has also been rigorously validated and verified by Basler for use with their cameras.
The Hummingboard 8P Edge AI SBC is now available through SolidRun's official website and select distributors.
