Biometrics partnership extended to IoT by Ambarella, Lumentum, On Semiconductor

Ambarella, Lumentum and ON Semiconductor have launched two joint reference designs under a collaborative partnership to accelerate the implementation of AI to internet of things devices for biometric access control, 3D electronic locks and other applications.

The AIoT partnership builds on the contactless biometric access control partnership formed by the three companies in early-2020.

Data from Lumentum’s VCSEL array illuminators and an image sensor from ON Semiconductor is combined using Ambarella’s AI system-on-chip (SoC) to provide higher levels of accuracy and more intelligent decision-making by IoT systems, the companies say.

The reference designs are intended for biometric access control and electronic locks, but can also address applications for smart cities, smart buildings and smart homes, as well as healthcare, according to the announcement. The high degree of integration in the joint solutions gives them lower power consumption and thermal design requirements, and enables smaller product form factors.

Ambarella President and CEO Fermi Wang suggests the collaboration could inspire “novel categories of ambient sensing products.”

“Our new joint solutions will greatly increase the accuracy of AIoT devices across application verticals—starting with biometric access control and electronic locks—enabling them to recognize people and predict their needs, rather than requiring a direct human interface,” says Téa Williams SVP and GM of 3D Sensing at Lumentum. “Many of these applications will take advantage of 3D sensing to inject a new dimension of data input for improved decision-making. As an example, using higher resolution VCSEL-based spot illumination enables longer sensing ranges and higher-accuracy facial recognition. Lumentum’s industry-leading and high-performance VCSEL arrays with zero field failures, used across these joint solutions, are driving new applications and helping realize the dream of AIoT devices with 3D sensing capabilities.”

“Our industry leading RGB-IR sensor technology, combined with the advanced ISP capabilities of Ambarella’s AI vision SoCs, can bring both visible and IR images into devices simultaneously,” comments ON Semiconductor Industrial and Consumer Sensor Division (ICSD) group Vice President and General Manager Gianluca Colli. “For this second generation of our joint solutions, we leveraged customer feedback to quadruple the resolution of our RGB-IR image sensors to 4K (8MP).”

The Vision+ reference design performs single-camera, 940nm light sensing based on RGB-IR technology, which the companies say is a first in a 4K solution, and performs depth-sensing, AI and video processing on a single chip, with a range of two meters.

The Saturn reference design integrates AI processing for structured light sensing with a single camera and fast-boot video processing.

As part of the collaboration, Ambarella has added support for time-of-flight sensor adapters powered by Lumentum’s VCSEL arrays to its CV2 series processor-based development kits. The company’s open SDK for its CVflow AI processor is also intended to allow easy integration with third-party applications, and give OEMs the ability to address differing regional requirements within a single platform.

Article Topics

access control  |  AI chips  |  Ambarella  |  biometrics  |  biometrics at the edge  |  image sensor  |  IoT  |  Lumentum  |  ON Semiconductor  |  research and development  |  smart lock