Renesas is geared towards the next generation of robots with visual AI and real-time control capabilities

     Renesas Electronics has announced the launch of a new product for high-performance robotics applications, the RZ/V2H, further expanding its popular RZ family of microprocessors (MPUs). The RZ/V2H delivers the highest level of performance in the product family, enabling visual AI and real-time control.

     The RZ/V2H is equipped with Renesas' new proprietary AI accelerator DRP-AI3 (Dynamically Configurable Processors-AI3), which delivers 10TOPS/W of energy efficiency, up to 10 times more than earlier models. In addition, the pruning technology adopted by the DRP-AI3 accelerator significantly enhanced the AI computational efficiency, increasing the AI inference performance to 80TOPS. This performance boost enables engineers to handle visual AI applications directly on edge AI devices without relying on cloud computing platforms. Details of the new DRP-AI3 acceleration technology were recently announced at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC 2024) in San Francisco, USA.

     The RZ/V2H integrates four Arm® Cortex-A55 CPU cores operating at a maximum frequency of 1.8GHz for Linux application processing, two Cortex-R8 cores operating at 800MHz for high-performance real-time processing, and a Cortex-M33 subkernel. By integrating these cores into a single chip, the product effectively manages visual AI and real-time control tasks, making it ideal for future demanding robotics applications. The RZ/V2H's lower power consumption eliminates the need for cooling fans and other cooling elements, allowing engineers to design smaller, less costly and more reliable systems.

     Daryl Khoo, Vice President of the Embedded Processing 1st Division at Renesas said: "As a preeminent supplier of microprocessors for motor control, Renesas is well positioned to take on the next challenge of leveraging AI technology to advance the robotics market. RZ/V2H will facilitate the development of the next generation of autonomous robots with visual AI capabilities, independent thinking and real-time action control."

     OpenCV is an open source industry standard library for computer vision processing. In this regard, Renesas has developed an OpenCV accelerator using its proprietary DRP technology to speed up OpenCV processing. Up to 16 times faster than CPU processing. The combination of DRP-AI3 and OpenCV accelerators enhances AI computing and image processing algorithms, enabling efficient and real-time execution of virtual SLAM technologies used in applications such as robotic vacuum cleaners.

     To accelerate development, Renesas also released "AI Applications" (a library of pre-trained models for various cases) and an AI SDK (software development kit) for rapid AI application development. By running these software on RZ/V2H's evaluation board, engineers can easily evaluate AI applications at an early stage of the design process, even if they don't have extensive AI knowledge.

     Rolf Segger, founder of SEGGER Microcontroller GmbH, said: "We are delighted to be involved in the launch of RZ/V2H, which combines artificial intelligence technology with real-time control. SEGGER's J-Link debugger, which is widely used in embedded development projects around the world, will provide the support RZ/V2H needs to help accelerate the next generation of robotics innovation. We look forward to building on our decades-long relationship with Renesas."