CNP: An FPGA-based processor for Convolutional Networks

Convolutional Networks (ConvNets) are biologically-inspired hierarchical architectures that can be trained to perform a variety of detection, recognition and segmentation tasks. ConvNets have a feed-forward architecture consisting of multiple linear convolution filters interspersed with point-wise non-linear squashing functions. This paper presents an efficient implementation of ConvNets on a low-end DSP-oriented Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The implementation exploits the inherent parallelism of ConvNets and takes full advantage of multiple hardware multiply-accumulate units on the FPGA. The entire system uses a single FPGA with an external memory module, and no extra parts. A network compiler software was implemented, which takes a description of a trained ConvNet and compiles it into a sequence of instructions for the ConvNet Processor (CNP). A ConvNet face detection system was implemented and tested. Face detection on a 512 x 384 frame takes 100ms (10 frames per second), which corresponds to an average performance of 3:4x10⁹ connections per second for this 340 million connection network. The design can be used for low-power, lightweight embedded vision systems for micro-UAVs and other small robots.