Image Capture System Based On Embedded ARM Microprocessor And USB Camera

Embedded image capture system has small volume, low cost, stability and so on merits, and is widely used in remote monitoring, video phone, computer vision, network meeting and so on field. A new solution of image capture system to avoid many shortcoming of traditional image capture base on microcontroller has been discussed in this paper. According to this new solution based on new high-speed ARM microprocessor S3C2410A and USB camera, adding with Linux operating system's benefit, a high performance image capture system has been build. USB camera has low cost, high performance and easy to purchase, but since long it is difficult to use USB camera in embedded systems. With the rapid development of embedded microprocessor especially ARM, embedded system's performance is greatly improved. Now people often transplant operating system in embedded system to help management and reduce difficulty for application programming. Linux is an open source outstanding operating system, if transplant it to embedded system can achieve high effective management and greatly convenient for application programming. Embedded Linux has most Linux operating system's performance and can save many resource, and it's real-time feature is improved. According to this solution base on embedded Linux operating system, we can build a high flexibility image capture system by using features of supporting for USB, network provided by Linux. We use video4Linux to programming USB camera, and realize gathering video data, displaying on LCD and saving picture in file system. This paper describe how to build embedded software and hardware platform, USB driver and image capture software. This solution is applicable for most USB camera in market, and you can use this system to realize remote monitoring through Ethernet. In this solution, we use video4Linux application programmable interface's data structure, function to realize gathering video data from USB camera, and use embedded GUI tool Qt/Embedded to program final application software, obtain beautiful GUI. Utilizing powerful function of Linux and it's tools to realize image capture can provide great convenient for later development base on Linux. This system is based on open platform and module structure, so it is easy to be transplanted, can be reused in many applications. Image capture using this good solution can achieve low cost, high flexibility and performance. This paper will guide you to build such image capture system based on S3C2410 and Linux operating system.