Automatic distribution of vision-tasks on computing clusters

Abstract

In this paper a consistent and efficient but yet convenient system for parallel computer vision, and in fact also realtime actuator control is proposed. The system implements the multi-agent paradigm and a blackboard information storage. This, in combination with a generic interface for hardware abstraction and integration of external software components, is setup on basis of the message passing interface (MPI). The system allows for data- and task-parallel processing, and supports both synchronous communication, as data exchange can be triggered by events, and asynchronous communication, as data can be polled, strategies. Also, by duplication of processing units (agents) redundant processing is possible to achieve greater robustness. As the system automatically distributes the task units to available resources, and a monitoring concept allows for combination of tasks and their composition to complex processes, it is easy to develop efficient parallel vision / robotics applications quickly. Multiple vision based applications have already been implemented, including academic, research related fields and prototypes for industrial automation. For the scientific community the system has been recently launched open-source.