Road marking vehicle control systems: the best fit for BORA SOM

THE SCENARIO:

In modern roads, the large amount of urban and non-urban traffic determines a rapid deterioration of the road surface: this is primarily visible in the horizontal signs, that is, in the progressive cancellation of the lines that delimit the lanes. It is, therefore, of fundamental importance to re-design these elements so that they are perfectly visible for road users: if this were not the case, dangerous situations could be created, especially in conditions of poor or reduced visibility.
For this critical task, there are specialized vehicles that, by adjusting the nozzles, apply the paint to the drive surface in an appropriate way: they must, therefore, be extremely precise, but also quick, especially if the traffic is high and if it is not possible to occlude the road, even if only partially, for relatively long times.

THE CONTEXT:

From this scenario, it is possible to deduce that this task must be optimized as much as possible to avoid inconvenience to traffic and drivers.
For the project in question, the idea was to automate part of the process to make it more accurate but also faster, by applying cameras capable of recognizing old lines using an optical system. This solution allows identifying exactly where to place the new drawings, without doing it manually and with a save in time and waste of resources. Furthermore, the system can adapt to the driving peculiarities of the operators, to the specific trail features and to the type of line needed time by time, even supporting the vehicle back-side operators in their monitoring tasks.

DAVE Embedded Systems' KEY ROLE:

For this crucial task, DAVE Embedded Systems' experience and professionalism have been directed to the adaptation of their System On Module BORA, forceful integration of FPGA and CPU that allows fast and precise data management for supervising the platform (in this case, the cameras-sprayers ensemble within the road-marking vehicle): BORA SOM is one of the most valuable DAVE Embedded Systems' components, and the company's ability in developing this innovative element is an outstanding example of its strength.
Please, refer to the following link for BORA documentation https://www.dave.eu/products/som/xilinx/zynq-XC7Z010-XC7Z020_bora 
Besides, the customer was assisted throughout the whole design phase, in productive long-term collaboration and investment.

ABOUT THE CUSTOMER:

The Company is one of the leading industries in building road-marking vehicles for broad routes and high-traffic situations: these particular working conditions require quick and effective control on sprayers and painters' tasks. It, therefore, needed to improve these machines' performances, adding automation to human operators. In DAVE Embedded Systems, it obtained an excellent purchase opportunity for the chief processor, considering that this development was not included in its core business. The solution offered full collaboration between the two companies, with the recognized expertise and ability in BORA module creation and adaptation of DAVE Embedded Systems.

APPLICATION BLOCK DIAGRAM:

The integration of all of these features can be summarized in the following application block diagram: