Developers who have used NVIDIA Jetson know that Jetson itself is a system module (SOM), but it will be connected to a Carrier Board to make it a complete circuit system, and can then be used for learning, development and verification. Once the development and verification are completed, depending on the needs of different applications, the Jetson module can be elastically matched with different carrier boards, such as changing to a carrier board that can connect multiple cameras to facilitate video surveillance, or changing to a carrier board with a CAN Bus interface for use in vehicle systems. After selecting the carrier board, the next step is to be embedded in the actual application environment or application system. The environment may be an open farm or under a bridge, and the system may be a drone or an unmanned vehicle. At this time, the circuit system must select a mechanism peripheral, or be embedded in the original chassis of the aircraft, van , or change the chassis peripheral design for this purpose.
meets the development elasticity of edge AI applications
In response to the above needs, Advantech (Advantech) launches an EPC-R7200 gateway system, which is also the topic to be introduced this time. This EPC-R7200 already has a Jetson carrier board and housing chassis, and is an industrial control-grade chassis. As long as the Jetson module is placed in and then placed in the set position or system as a whole, a complete system is realized.
EPC-R7200 internal circuit board and carrier board, putting the Jetson module into complete
Also, because Jetson adopts the elastic group design of "module + carrier board", the gateway system design of EPC-R7200 not only considers the adaptability of three Jetson modules (Jetson TX2 NX, Jetson Xavier NX, Jetson Nano) in the hardware design of the carrier board, but also implements software integration and testing verification to ensure that users can select different Jetson modules to install them into the gateway system according to different application situations. At the same time, because the power consumption of the three Jetson modules is different, the EPC-R7200 also provides three heat sinks as accessories. Users can easily replace different Jetson modules to improve the computing efficiency of artificial intelligence , or use more economical modules. In
EPC-R7200, you can choose to configure Jetson Nano (Part 1), Jetson Xavier NX (Medium 2) or Jetson TX2 NX (Part 2), and have corresponding heat sinks. The leftmost is heat dissipation paste
For NVIDIA, you only need to focus on the production and sales of Jetson, and for carrier boards and chassis, ecological partners are invited to participate. As of April 2022, NVIDIA has officially announced that there are 107 carrier boards, 19 open systems, and 278 complete systems. What are the outstanding features of the EPC-7200 gateway system (carrier plate + housing chassis) among many combinations? This article will be disassembled and observed one by one.
EPC-R7200 enclosure chassis, front I/O panel
First observed from the outside, the EPC-R7200 has a compact appearance (Compact), and the size is only 15.2 x 13.7 x4.2 cm. It can be so light and compact. Thanks to the separately designed and matched heat sink. The Jetson module used in the development stage has a tall heat sink, but the EPC-R7200 uses a low-low heat sink, and the top of the heat sink is then attached to the top cover of the case, which means that heat is transmitted to the entire case to achieve heat dissipation. Because of the height reduction of capacity (reduced volume) the EPC-R7200 has greater scenario applicability, and can be installed in a very small environmental space, or directly installed in a small system, and there is almost no need to change the system design. It can also be fixed on the DIN slide commonly used in the factory.
Advantech EPC-R7200 system has a variety of connection ports and shell designs
As can be seen from the above figure, the front I/O panel of the EPC-R7200 has a power access hole, 2 USB ports (USB 3.2 standard), 2 GbE LAN ports, and 1 HDMI 2.0 output and 2 LEDs, in terms of power, the EPC-R7200 can use 9 to 24V DC, that is, it can be driven by ordinary car batteries. Two USB ports may be considered too few. After all, there are 3 or 4 development kits, but there are other solutions to this point, which will be introduced in detail later; the two LAN ports are also special, because there is only 1 development kit, which will be explained later.
HDMI can output 4K clarity (3840 x 2160) and frequency 60Hz; on the LED, one power indicator, that is, the EPC-R7200 will light up when running, and the other can be defined by the developer.
EPC-R7200 externally, bottom cover
has a RESET hole and an antenna hole (ANT) outside, and there is a USB-OTG port, Micro SD card slot and Nano SIM card slot
EPC-R7200 right panel, pierce it with a thin tip to restart; then there is a screw-tied cover, and there are three items after removing the cover, namely 1 USB 2.0 OTG port (only Jetson can play the controlled role of the device type, not the main control role), 1 MicROSD memory card slot, and 1 Nano SIM card slot. There are 2 higher-position holes on the side, and there are also 4 holes on the other side, which can be used to install wireless transceiver antennas. There is a debug port (lower right), recovery key (lower), M.2 2230 Key E slot (top right), and M.2 3042 Key B slot (left) at the bottom of
EPC-R7200. There is also a cover tied with screws like a side door at the bottom. After disassembly, there are four items, namely the debug port (Debug Port/Console Port), recovery key (Recovery Key/Button), M.2 2230 Key E slot, and M.2 3042 Key B slot. The debugging port is for developers to use. The recovery key is a system recovery method that can be used when restarting is invalid. The Key E slot is used to connect to the communication module daughter card of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth , and the Key B slot is used to connect to the communication module daughter card of WWAN wireless domain network. The aforementioned Nano SIM card is also related to this module.
EPC-R7200 Rear I/O elastic expansion
EPC-R7200 internal carrier board connector can elastically connect different UIO40-Express I/O expansion boards, and have corresponding EPC-R7200 rear I/O panels. (Source: Advantech)
As mentioned earlier, it seems that only 2 USB ports are not enough. The rear I/O panel becomes a place to play. The EPC-R7200 has another set of pins on the carrier board, which can be configured with Advantech UIO40-Express series I/O expansion board. For example, you can place more LAN ports, more USB ports, or RS-232 ports, RS-485 ports commonly used in the industrial control field, CAN ports for automotive electronics, or solid-state drive (SSD) connected to the NVMe agreement through the M.2 Key M slot, or even the I2C interface or general GPIO, etc.
EPC-R7200 logic block diagram, the blue part is the I/O interface, the orange part is the chip used for the carrier board and the interface connected to the Jetson module. (Source: Advantech)
Overall, the carrier board of EPC-R7200 has previously expanded the Jetson module, such as using Intel I210 to convert the Jetson PCIe interface to an actual LAN port, or using a USB 2.0 Hub chip and USB 3.2 Gen2 Hub chip to expand the Jetson original USB interface, or using a transceiver chip to convert the Jetson module's UART interface to the actual RS-232 interface. In addition, the MIPI-CSI interface designed for image sensing and display is still available.
It should be added that in fact, the Jetson module itself has one set of RGMII interfaces that can implement one set of LAN ports. As mentioned earlier, the other set of LAN ports is implemented through the PCIe interface of the Jetson module. However, the number of PCIe on the Jetson Nano module is insufficient, so only one set of LAN ports can be used.
Practical application: The wafer foundry industry also pays for
After understanding the specifications and design of EPC-R7200, what is more important is how to use it? At present, EPC-R7200 has many applications, such as for traffic monitoring, and for illegal vehicles, they can use images to record and identify license plates; or can be used for facial recognition to identify whether there is a mask to assist in epidemic prevention, or for self-service check-out in unmanned hotels, or for artificial intelligence endoscope images for pets. Or, for example, German machinery manufacturers are used for smart agriculture, and accurately spray on the ground through artificial intelligence identification, and only spray herbicides on weeds to avoid crops; Japan is also used in smart robots for agricultural work.
Finally, take Taiwan wafer manufacturing foundry related business as an example and explains in detail that wafers need to be transported during wafer manufacturing, and extremely careful handling must be avoided to avoid precision wafer damage. Therefore, a wafer handling van, or wafer handling robot (Wafer Transfer Robot) is required. In fact, the role of this type of automatic transport truck is very important in various factories. In the past, the AGV automatic guide truck was common, but now the smarter transport truck is called AMR autonomous mobile robot.
In this case, EPC-R7200 is configured on AMR, and then the moving wheel is operated with the UART/RS-232 interface, two sets of USB ports are connected to the camera to monitor the movement of the external environment and objects, and one set of USB is connected to Wi-Fi/Bluetooth communication so that the assigned handling tasks can be received. In addition, the PCIe interface and the CAN interface are used to control the handling arms. In order to attract and implement the CAN interface and UART/RS-232 interface, Advantech UIO40-Express I/O series UIO-4034 expansion card is also used.
EPC-R7200 has been used in wafer automatic handling vehicles, using AI technology to sense the environment and routes, so as to move accurately and smoothly.
In addition to hardware, the handler also uses software pre-integrated with Advantech , including Ubuntu Linux embedded system, ROS/ROS2 intermediary software, NVIDIA's ISAAC GEM, drivers and software development kits (SDKs), etc., allowing developers to focus more on the development of artificial intelligence applications, eliminating the many initial work of the software execution environment.
Summary
Summary, in actual application environment, high-pre-integrated software, flexible configuration I/O, industrial control-grade rugged and durable chassis, etc. are indispensable. Only by using this as the basis can we truly realize the Edge AI application that meets the needs. This is an ideal choice for EPC-R7200.
