Adlink’s “NEON-1000-MDX Smart Camera” runs Ubuntu 18.04 on an Intel Apollo Lake SoC with a Myriad X VPU supported by Intel OpenVINO and Adlink’s Edge vision software. Four camera options are available from 1.2 to 5MP.

In July, Adlink announced a NEON-2000-JT2 machine vision camera based on an Nvidia Jetson TX2 or Jetson Xavier NX module. Now the company has returned with a similarly Ubuntu-driven NEON-1000-MDX Smart Camera with the same form factor, but powered by an Intel Apollo Lake SoC accompanied by an Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU for AI processing.

NEON-1000-MDX camera and full kit
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Like the NEON-2000-JT2, the NEON-1000-MDX is available with four C-Mount camera options with 8mm focal length and f1.4 aperture, ranging from 1.2-megapixels to 5MP (see chart below). Adlink does not list the sensors, but the earlier NEON-2000-JT2 mostly uses ON Semiconductor sensors ranging up to the 5MP MT9P031.


NEON-1000-MDX sensor options
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The NEON-1000-MDX runs Ubuntu 18.04 on a dual-core Atom-E3930. The camera ships with 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC, and a microSD slot and offers 2x USB ports and an HDMI port.

The NEON-1000-MDX provides an external, DIN-rail mountable Adlink DIN37D-01 DIO extension board equipped with a cable to the camera’s FPGA-driven DIO port. A USB Type-C port or DC jack draws 15V power from a 110V-240V AC adapter and a supplied power cord.

NEON-1000-MDX portside views
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The Myriad X VPU is supported by Intel OpenVINO along with Adlink’s Edge vision software. Adlink Edge includes a pre-installed EVA (Edge Vision Analytics) SDK for deploying neural networks optimized by OpenVINO “without extra coding or integration efforts using a wide range of ready to use plug-ins,” says Adlink. The NEON-1000-MDX hardware and software “allow machine vision experts and developers to build, test and deploy machine learning (ML) models faster, while giving IoT solution teams and system integrators the tools to connect, stream and automate machine vision work,” says Adlink.

In April, the same OpenVINO/Adlink Edge combo was announced for Adlink’s Raspberry Pi-like Vizi-AI dev kit. The Vizi-AI runs on a LEC-AL SMARC module with a quad-core Atom x5-E3940 from the Apollo Lake family along with the Myriad X. It’s possible the LEC-AL is used here as well. A few weeks ago, Adlink announced it was adding Node-RED support to the Vizi-AI.

 
Adlink Smart Pallet

Adlink has deployed the NEON-1000-MDX on a new Adlink Edge Smart Pallet product offering that “adds intelligence and automation to manual warehouse fulfillment operations such as receiving, bin picking, packing, shipping and worker safety.” If a box contains the incorrect order on a conveyor system, for example, Smart Pallet can send an alert to a conveyor’s sorter to divert the box to a re-check area.

 
Further information

No pricing or availability information was provided for the NEON-1000-MDX. More information may be found in Adlink’s announcement and product page.