Seeed Studio is preparing to launch what it describes as the “most advanced AI camera” on the market: the reCamera – a modular intelligent RISC-V camera platform that can run computer vision and artificial intelligence (CV and AI) models on-device using an integrated one tera operations per second (TOPS) accelerator.
“reCamera is a combination of a processor and a camera sensor,” the company explains its development. “As processors (both SOC (System-on-Chip) and MCU (Microcontroller Unit)) are getting smaller and more powerful today, it is now possible to combine the processor with camera sensors. In fact, many IPCs (IP cameras) already use this design to accelerate AI recognition on edge devices. That’s why today we’re introducing reCamera, an open source camera platform that anyone can play with.”
Although there are a number of other smart camera systems on the market, Seeed hopes the reCamera will stand out with a compact footprint and modular design – split across three boards: the core board, the sensor board and the base board. The core board contains the processor, local storage and optional Wi-Fi connectivity; the sensor board houses a choice of image sensors, with rolling and global shutter variants planned; and the base board offers USB Type-C and UART serial connectivity, microSD card storage and – depending on the model – features such as an Ethernet port with Power over Ethernet (PoE) compatibility or CAN bus connectivity.
Two variants of the core board were revealed, only one of which will be available at launch: the C1_2002w, which includes emmC memory and a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio module; a C1_2002 will follow, which drops the Wi-Fi/BLE radio in favor of additional SDIO and UART connectivity. In both cases, they are powered by the Sophgo SG2002, a dual-core chip that offers users the choice of an Arm Cortex-A53 or T-Head XuanTie C906 RISC-V core alongside an MCS-51 8051-compatible microcontroller core and a TOPS neural coprocessor for on-device machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML and AI) tasks.
The reCamera is divided into three modular boards, one of which acts as a single-board computer, another houses the sensor and one provides external connectivity. (📷: Seeed Studio)
The core board will be stacked with the sensor board, of which only one is expected to be available at launch: the S1_OV5647, which is based on a five-megapixel Omnivision rolling shutter image sensor. Two more have been confirmed as in the works: the S2_IMX335, which uses a Sony IMX335 rolling shutter image sensor; and the S3_SC130GS, which is based on a one-megapixel SmartSens global shutter, which trades resolution for capturing the entire image in a single shot.
The standard baseboard includes a microSD card slot, a single-port Ethernet transformer module, a UART serial bus, and a USB Type-C port for data and power. A “B2” variant switches from a side-mounted to a vertically mounted USB Type-C port, while the “B3_POE” replaces the USB port and microSD card slot with an Ethernet port with PoE support. The final model, the “B4_Gyro,” features an integrated gyroscope sensor and a port for CAN bus connectivity – although all models except the “B1” standard were at version 0.1 at the time of writing and are not expected to be available at launch.
Seeed has described three companion launches, including an open-source motorized gimbal. (📷: Seeed Studio)
In all cases, the boards are controlled by a Linux buildroot system called reCamera OS, which provides a web interface for network configuration, live view, and a browser-based system for opening a shell on the camera for command-line control. The accelerator is available in frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorc, Seeed has confirmed. Seeed has also confirmed three related projects: the reCamera Gimbal, an open-source motorized gimbal mount and enclosure for the camera; the reCamera Industrial, which provides a rugged enclosure with tripod mount and interchangeable lens mount; and the reCamera Robot Arm, which, as the name suggests, connects the camera to a robotic arm.
Seed is launching the reCamera at $34.90 for a non-WiFi/BLE version with 8GB eMMC, and $54.90 for a Wi-Fi/BLE version with 64GB eMMC. Seed has also started selling discount coupons that can be used to reduce the price of the top-of-the-line $5 model by 50%. in the company shop for a limited number of early bird buyers.
Further information is available in the project’s GitHub repositorywhere some design files have been released under the permissive Apache 2.0 license; the reCamera operating system is available in a separate repositoryAnyone who would like to receive a sample before the official market launch can apply to an alpha tester.
