A fruit farm sought a more intelligent way to pick their produce through autonomous mobile robot (AMR) technology. Given the environment the robot would be required to operate in however, the farm had very specific needs to ensure their solution reaped rewards. Powered by Intel Atom® x6000E, Pentium®, and Celeron® series processors, the PICO-EHL4 was the seed needed to help the farm’s growth.
Customer Requirements
AAEON’s Solutions
Fluid Connectivity
To independently navigate the farm’s grounds and select the correct fruit to pick, the customer required a solution that could accommodate peripheral technologies through which positional and visual data could be obtained and processed.
Dense Board Design
Hosting two RJ-45 LAN, two serial port headers, and a 4-bit GPIO, the PICO-EHL4 connected to cameras and sensors to obtain both visual and positional data. Onboard LPDDR4x memory enabled fast data transmission, while the board’s HDMI 2.0b and eDP/LVDS slots enabled a tripartite human-machine interface.
Edge Functionality
Because the fruit picking process requires more agility than typical agriculture equipment, the AMR needed to be both mobile and intelligent. Therefore, sophisticated inferencing capabilities were required to facilitate accurate object detection on the edge.
Flexible Expansion
The PICO-EHL4’s M.2 2230 E-Key and mini-card expansion slots allowed the installation of Wi-Fi and AI accelerator modules. This meant the AMR could analyze visual data on the edge, while also maintaining wireless communication with other devices, such as the human-machine interface.
Power-Efficient Outdoor Operation
While not as intensive as many Industry 4.0 applications, operating in an outdoor, agricultural environment requires sufficient processing power and ruggedness. As such, power-efficiency and durability were very important prerequisites for the customer.
Fanless, Wide-Temperature Support
AAEON’s world-class customization service ensured the PICO-EHL4 was capable of fanless operation across a wide temperature range. Further, the PICO-EHL4’s 4 core, 4 thread processor gave the application the required power at an incredibly energy-efficient 2.48A@ +12V.
What Sets AAEON Apart?
To help customers realize their project’s potential, AAEON provides both embedded hardware and bespoke services. Through its Q-Service, AAEON helps customers reduce the time spent on developing their embedded applications by offering dedicated design services. From BIOS customization, hardware ruggedization, and OS preinstallation, AAEON’s Q-Service gives customers an easy route to project fulfilment.
