Most of the commercial AI products flooding the market are not impressive, so why not create your own? The venerable Raspberry Pi minicomputers are a cheap way to start experimenting with AI, and today they're even more capable. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has teamed up with Sony to produce a new camera module for the devices, and unlike previous cameras, this one has built-in AI.
The foundation says that this camera has been designed to integrate seamlessly with the Raspberry Pi software stack. That means developers and experts should be able to run their own neural network models on the Pi with relatively minimal effort. Camera firmware and sample apps can be downloaded to any currently supported device. Raspberry Pi device with just a few commands, all documented in the foundation guide. “We look forward to seeing what members of our community can achieve using the power of the Raspberry Pi AI camera.” saying Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi.
The new AI camera module is based on Sony's IMX500 image sensor, which has a modest but capable resolution of 12.3 megapixels. What sets it apart from other cameras is the integrated SRAM. This enables AI processing at the edge without sending data to another component (such as the AI computing suite) or a remote server. It also has the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller chip. This allows a machine to perform image-based AI work without a powerful primary processor. It is capable of performing activities such as image classification, object detection, and pose detection. This should also help developers take advantage of Sony's availability. Aitrios AI Platform.
The AI Camera simplifies running AI workloads on Raspberry Pi devices.
Credit: Raspberry Pi Ltd
The Raspberry Pi AI camera can run images through AI workloads, but it's not the fastest. You can capture 10 frames per second at full resolution, or you can use 2×2 pixel binning mode to capture 2028 by 1520 images at 40 fps. From a purely imaging perspective, this camera is not as good as the Camera Module 3 that Raspberry Pi launched in 2023. That device has the same resolution, but can record video at 50fps and has autofocus. The AI camera only has manual focus.
This camera add-on will cost you $70, which is much more expensive than the non-AI Camera Module 3. To be fair, this device has more silicon on board to enable AI processing. It will be available at retailers such as Adafruit and Sparkfun. It comes preloaded with the MobileNetSSD model to get you started. You can also feel reasonably confident developing software for the AI camera. Raspberry Pi says the device will be produced and supported until 2028.
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