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AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)

maxlab.io

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AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)

#1

Post by h317 »

We finished a design that allows a plug-and-play solution with TensorFlow Lite and a web server with the UI on ESP32. Here is a video of the process: https://youtu.be/aEZX3JMzwTo

I wanted to share the design in case anyone is interested as the camera is aimed at developers who want to play with AI models on the embedded side.

AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)
maxlab.io

Re: AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)

#6

Post by moffkalast »

Nice job, though a smaller PCB would've been more practical? The ESP32-CAM is definitely a bit tricky to work with software-wise.

I'm not sure how much sense it actually makes to run anything onboard unless you want to take a snapshot every few seconds and then spending a while classifying it. I've eventually just resorted to streaming at SVGA and decent framerates and then processing the output on another machine.

Re: AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)

#8

Post by drdaeman »

Hmm... does it really work as advertised? Can it really run some basic object detection in real-time on-device, and at what resolution/framerate combination(s)?

Sorry for being skeptical, just that it sounds too incredible to believe. I've toyed around with the same chips you're using, OV2640 with ESP32-S3 and at any decent resolution it simply seemed to lack the processing power to run even simple motion detection, let alone anything fancier. Surely it was kind of fine at low-res and it kinda works spotting an elephant in a room, but it was completely incapable for detecting small fast-moving targets (roaches) under less than perfect lighting conditions (bathroom ceiling lights, decent but not overly bright). Best it could do was serving a 1024p@5fps MJPEG stream over a network to a more powerful machine for further processing.

Re: AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)

#9

Post by daveloyall »

drdaeman wrote: post #8

Hmm... does it really work as advertised? Can it really run some basic object detection in real-time on-device, and at what resolution/framerate combination(s)? Sorry for being skeptical, just that it sounds too incredible to believe. I've toyed around with the same chips you're using, OV2640 with ESP32-S3 and at any decent resolution it simply seemed to lack the processing power to run even simple motion detection,…

I'm skeptical, too. But apparently OP isn't the only one using (or trying to use) "TensorFlow-Lite for Microcontrollers" on an ESP32-S3. See this (little bit of) chatter: https://github.com/tensorflow/tflite-micro/search?q=esp32&ty...

Re: AI model on a $3 chip (ESP32)

#10

Post by ge96 »

drdaeman wrote: post #8

Hmm... does it really work as advertised? Can it really run some basic object detection in real-time on-device, and at what resolution/framerate combination(s)? Sorry for being skeptical, just that it sounds too incredible to believe. I've toyed around with the same chips you're using, OV2640 with ESP32-S3 and at any decent resolution it simply seemed to lack the processing power to run even simple motion detection,…

Here's a video of a guy squeezing an ML model into a Teensy granted the Teensy is pretty powerful

https://youtu.be/6raRftH9yxM?t=436

edit: I will say processing IMU data is probably (a lot) easier than frame by frame of some video

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