Offical launch of NATvision solutions at booth 10H46 in hall 10 - Free tickets available

Bonn/Germany, October 2024 - At VISION 2024, N.A.T. launches its hybrid and modular NATvision platform where we combine the best of FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and CPU ( X86 / ARM) for real-time imaging data analytics and processing.

Please join us in hall 10 at booth 10H46 and experience our life demos covering real-time Vision examples as well as an AI supported object detection and -tracking system to get detailed information about our latest products around the NATvision platform.

Your free exhibition ticket is available here:

Simply use the promotion code 10H46NATvision and get your free ticket.

NATvision is modular

NATvision is built on AMD ZYNQ Ultrascale+ MPSocs for faster and energy-efficient preprocessing and different FMC Modules to support the required camera interfaces. Depending on the customer's needs, the MPSoCs are available in different variants. IEEE1588 for high-precision time synchronization of all connected cameras is supported naturally.

The in-house GigEVision camera-stack for the FPGA cards is modular as well, so the platform can be adapted to individual tasks and transmission speeds.

Moreover, NATvision can be supplemented with additional processors and AI accelerators from NAT and other Vendors who support the open industrial standards from PICMG and VITA around AMC/MTCA and FMC/FMC+ specification.

NATvision is scalable

Up to 12 FPGA cards can be combined in one MTCA system, so enormous amounts of data can be transferred flexibly between these modules via the highspeed backplane. The system is suitable for connections with a data throughput of up to 100 GbE per camera.

Wide range of applications

As NATvision enables the use of high-resolution, high-end cameras for inspection, quality control, and monitoring, the system aims at the entire value chain of industrial companies - from development and production to packaging. Applications may be analyzing off-rollable meterage, printed items, and bulk materials as well as semiconductors and electronic assemblies.

Another field of application is aerospace and automotive testing e.g., material stress tests, crash tests, airbag dynamics, aerodynamics, combustion processes in engines, or thermal measurement.

NATvision is also suited for safety and security applications like accident prevention in intelligent transport systems (e.g. railway technology), medical imaging (e.g. X-ray), and science/research (physics, chemistry, and biology/biomechanics).

Live demo

The performance of the new real-time FPGA-based NATvision platform in high-speed/high-res vision applications will be demonstrated using a live demo that captures and visualizes the trajectory of a ball in real time.

NATvision enables calculated trajectory predictions to be made, on the basis of which corresponding trigger and output signals can be initiated. Motion control systems can use such calculations to precisely identify goods that are recognized as faulty e.g., to exclude them from the further production process at the appropriate point using a generated trigger.

As part of the live demo, the image data is recorded with a 4K Ultra HD GigEVision camera with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels at a frame rate of up to 180 frames/sec. Digital video data streams of up to 35 Gbit/s per camera stream are transmitted and processed in the FPGA using N.A.T.'s own GigEVision firmware package. These data are then available for further FPGA-based processing as an AXI stream. Finally, the video data is written to the RAM of the FPGA-integrated ARM cores – which support Linux – via DMA. From there, data can be transferred to other boards  @ 64/128 GTPS or external nodes with up to 2 x 100 GbE via the system uplinks. GPUs and AI accelerators can also be integrated as additional cards.

Currently, each FPGA card can receive and process up to 40Gb/s of image data per camera. This value will increase to 100Gb/s in future. The measured processing latency in the FPGA for the complete preprocessing is less than 500ns, while the processing speed is deterministic in every configuration.

Components of the NATvision platform:

• NATIVEserver, an embedded NATvision system with integrated CPU, eMCH, PM, and up to 4 FPGA card slots
• NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECO with Xilinx ZynqUP ZU2 – ZU5 MPSoC
• NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ADV with Xilinx ZynqUP ZU7 – ZU11
• NAT-FMC-PoE and NAT-FMC-HDMI
• NAT-FMC-SFP
• A NATvision Board Support Package (BSP) including GigEVision stack, GenICam, and sample applications for development teams

Latest MicroTCA.0 Revision 3 adds high-bandwidth interfaces such as 100 GbE and PCIe Gen 5 with increased TDP to prepare the specification for demanding next-generation edge and server workloads and applications

WAKEFIELD, MA. PICMG, a leading consortium for the development of open embedded computing specifications, has ratified Revision 3.0 of the MicroTCA.0 (µTCA.0) specification. This new release addresses urgent bandwidth requirements by defining 100 GbE and PCIe Gen 5 fabrics that improve system performance by 4x while also expanding platform thermal design power (TDP), enabling the use of higher performance processors. Users can now select from a range of specification-compliant building blocks and solutions that allow for more power per slot for higher transfer rates within µTCA chassis and to external systems and server clusters. It also lays the foundation for building next-generation MicroTCA proofs of concept.

Revision 3 of MTCA.0 addresses the current and future demands of applications such as machine vision, AI, defense, research, instrumentation, wireless communication, and emerging applications like quantum computing. “Revision 3 of MTCA.0 addresses urgent requirements and thus enables companies to now provide specification-compliant solutions rather than proprietary or custom approaches,” says Heiko Korte of NAT Europe and lead of PICMG’s MicroTCA Technical Working Group. “The fact that so many MicroTCA ecosystem suppliers have joined the working group shows the importance of the changes and also underlines the strong interest to make these part of an open specification.

“The broad spectrum of participants also ensured that every single agenda item got reviewed from different angles and properly discussed,” he adds.

MicroTCA.0 Revision 3.0-compliant solutions will be available shortly, including chassis, MicroTCA Carrier Hub (MCH), Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC), Rear Transition Module (RTM), and power modules (PM) products from VadaTech, NAT, AIES Sp z o.o., nVent SCHROFF, and others. The commitment of existing vendors to continuing the development of µTCA products is joined by increased interest from players in emerging fields like quantum computing, projecting a healthy lifecycle for the open computing specification for years to come.

“VadaTech is proud to have been part of the development and ratification of revision 3 of the uTCA specification,” says Alex Malcom, Managing Director of VadaTech Ltd. “Its release secures the continued adoption of the standard by commercial, scientific and defense organizations around the world.”

The MicroTCA.0 Revision 3.0 specification can be accessed at www.picmg.org/product/micro-telecommunications-computing-architecture-base-specification. For more information on the MicroTCA family, visit https://nateurope.com/technology/mtca-amc or https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/microtca.

About PICMG

Founded in 1994, PICMG is a not-for-profit 501(c) consortium of companies and organizations that collaboratively develop open standards for high performance industrial, Industrial IoT, military & aerospace, telecommunications, test & measurement, medical, and general-purpose embedded computing applications. There are over 130 member companies that specialize in a wide range of technical disciplines, including mechanical and thermal design, single board computer design, high-speed signaling design and analysis, networking expertise, backplane, and packaging design, power management, high availability software and comprehensive system management.

Key standards families developed by PICMG include COM-HPC, COM Express, CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA, AdvancedMC, CompactPCI Serial, SHB Express, MicroSAM, and HPM (Hardware Platform Management). https://www.picmg.org.

We are proud to announce our new partnership with Blue Line A/S representing N.A.T. in Scandinavia.

Blue Line, a Danish-based provider of industrial IT hardware designed for demanding environments having local offices in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, is dedicated to serving the Nordic region.

“This new partnership allows us to expand our product portfolio by incorporating widely implemented MicroTCA, VPX, and PMC/XMC solutions.”, said Niels Pedersen, Managing Director of BlueLine A/S.  He continued: “ Additionally, it enables us to offer NAT's market-leading solutions across the Nordic region.”

Helmut Laufkoetter, Managing Director of N.A.T., added: “We warmly welcome Blue Line as our new partner. This new partnership allows us to meet the growing demands of the embedded market in all the Nordic countries and unlocks exciting new opportunities for team N.A.T..”

N.A.T. and  Blue Line are looking  forward to a very successful joint future in the Scandinavian markets.

Click the link below to discover more about Blue Line.

🌐: https://blue-line.com/