Why Embedded Cameras are Difficult, and How to Make Them Easy - Laurent Pinchart, Ideas on Board
Channel: The Linux Foundation
Date: 2018-10-25

Why Embedded Cameras are Difficult, and How to Make Them Easy - Laurent Pinchart, Ideas on Board

Cameras are complex devices that need heavy hardware image processing operations. Control of the processing is based on advanced algorithms that must run on a programmable processor. This has traditionally been implemented in a dedicated MCU in the camera, but in embedded devices algorithms have been moved to the main CPU to save cost. Blurring the boundary between camera devices and Linux often left the user with no other option than a vendor-specific closed-source solution.

To address this problem the V4L2 community has very recently started collaboration with the industry to develop a camera stack that will be open-source-friendly while still protecting vendor core IP. This talk will review the problems specific to embedded cameras in Linux, present the solutions being developed to address them, and explain how device vendors and system developers can take advantage of the new stack. 

About Laurent Pinchart
Laurent Pinchart has been a Linux kernel developer since 2001. He has written media-related Linux drivers for consumer and embedded devices and is one of the V4L core developers. Laurent is the founder and owner of Ideas on Board, a company specialized in embedded Linux design and development. He has given Linux kernel-related talks at the FOSDEM, LPC and ELC. He currently works with the Renesas Linux kernel team where he develops a wide range of embedded drivers including DRM/KMS and V4L.