Biochips — Manipulation and Detection of Magnetically-tagged Biomolecules
In the biochip project a compact autonomous portable platform based on a fully integrated biochip for biomolecular analysis (DNA hybridisation, antibody antigen interaction, etc.) was developed. The system is based on a magnetoresistive biochip that performs recognition by detecting magnetically tagged targets. A complete prototype of the system that is capable of DNA recognition detection was developed and implemented using of-the-shelf integrated circuits. A graphical user interface was developed to control the platform and display the analysis outcome in simple and friendly way.
p264: open platform for parallel H.264/AVC video encoders in multi-core systems
This project provides an open platform for programming parallel H.264 video encoders in current multi-core processing systems. The developed platform is based on the original H.264/AVC JM Reference Software, thus maintaining full compliancy with the original encoder.
The provided acceleration of the attained frame-rate is achieved through a two-fold approach. Firstly, a wide set of optimizations were carefully performed in the original encoding software and several new structures were carefully developed in order to provide a preliminary speedup of its execution. Then, distinct parallel models were extensively exploited in order to optimize the available resource usage, leading to two different levels of parallelism: slice level and macroblock level.
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The whole software platform was developed using C programming language, making extensive use of the OpenMP API to assign parallel tasks to concurrent threads. Significant performance levels can be obtained for a wide set of video formats. Moreover, the modularity and flexibility of the offered platform provides a easy user-reconfiguration of the implemented system in order to better adapt it to the target multi-core systems.
Additional information can be found here.
Video Educational Kit
The SIPS group now offers a Video Educational Kit based on a FPGA. The board has been designed to meet the high demanding characteristics of real time video processing.
This inexpensive and cost-effective platform can be easily used and configured for different types of algorithms and applications. The platform can be used for embedded design with the Xilinx MicroBlaze™ soft processor core increasing its flexibility and shortening the development time. It provides an interfaces with a digital camera and with an output video peripheral for video display.
The processing core of the Video Educational Kit is based on a Xilinx Spartan-3 XC3S400 FPGA, with 400k system gates, 288Kb of RAM divided in 16 blocks and sixteen 18-bit multipliers.
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Picture of the Video Educational Kit connected to a standard monitor (top left) and an OmniVision OV9650 digital camera (bottom left).
Overview of the Video Educational Kit architecture. |
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The Video Educational Kit details and datasheet can be found here
On-Going Projects
- TAGS - The power of the short - Tools and Algorithms for next Generation Sequencing applications (Jan 2011 to Dec 2013)
- HELIX - Heterogeneous Multi-Core Architecture for Biological Sequence Analysis (Dec 2010 to Nov 2013)
- COST - Open European Network for High Performance Computing on Complex Environments (Jan 2009 to May 2013)
- BIOMAGCMOSPLAT - New Magnetic CMOS Biochip and New High Performance Reading Platform (Jan 2010 to Dec 2012)
- SE2A - Nanoelectronics for Safe, Fuel Efficient and Environment Friendly Automotive Solutions (Jan 2009 to Mar 2012)