Other Considerations

Safety

We should only operate electronic devices in safe environments. In case of fire or gas leakage, we should turn off all devices immediately. We should also be concerned about overloading the circuit when working with devices that need to be plugged into electric outlets. For this project, we spent most of the time developing in the Cornell ECE computer lab, and therefore, special precautions had been taken. All the electrical outlets are properly grounded and the ground pad on lab benches provide a static-safe environment.

Usability

The system that we designed could help navigation systems determine moving objects, help imaging systems develop stereo vision, and security systems for motion detection. Since the optical flow model can determine how things are moving in between images, we can also apply it to edge detection systems.

Standards

To program the FPGA, we used USB interface to communicate between the DE2 board and the PC. The Altera Quartus software provided both hardware and software development platforms.

Ethical Consideration

In developing this project, we followed the code of ethics in our labs and with our peers. We think it is important for us to follow this code so that everyone will get the benefit of the resources provided to us and make it a nice working environment for everyone.

1. to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment;

2. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist;

3. to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data;

4. to reject bribery in all its forms;

5. to improve the understanding of technology, its appropriate application, and potential consequences;

6. to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent limitations;

7. to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others;

8. to treat fairly all persons regardless of such factors as race, religion, gender, disability, age, or national origin;

9. to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious action;

10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.

We did not violate any of the above codes. While many people overlook these guidelines, we believe that all electrical engineers are obligated to follow these rules, so that we can reduce any risk in technology development.

Intellectual Properties

The camera and SDRAM drivers were provided by Altera and/or Terasic. We made some modifications to them in order to make our system work.

Special Thanks

1. Altera Corporation for sponsoring this course by donating the DE2 boards

2. Terasic Technologies for sponsoring us with their CMOS camera modules

3. Professor Bruce Land for excellent guidance and support

4. TA Paul Chen for helping us late at night!