Jetson carrier can stream four Flir USB3 cameras

Teledyne Flir has announced a “Quartet TX2” carrier board for Nvidia’s Jetson TX2 that can stream 4x Flir Blackfly S USB3 machine vision cameras. The board also provides a SATA link and additional USB ports.

UK-based Teledyne Flir has announced a camera-oriented carrier board for Nvidia’s Jetson TX2 module. The Quartet TX2 is equipped with 4x TF-38 style USB 3.0 ports for connecting Flir’s Blackfly S USB3 cameras for machine vision.

Quartet TX2 (left) and with Jetson TX2 and Blackfly S USB3 cameras
(click images to enlarge)

The 138 x 92 x 18.2mm Quartet TX2 runs Arch Linux and is available with the cross-platform Flir Spinnaker SDK. Applications include robotics, metrology, ADAS, and 3D scanning.

The Jetson TX2 is more powerful than the low-end Jetson Nano and more feature-rich than the similar TX2 NX, but is less powerful than the Jetson Xavier NX and high-end AGX Xavier. The module supplies 2x high-end Denver cores, 4x Cortex-A57 cores, and a 256-core Pascal GPU with 1.33-TOPS AI capability. Teledyne Flir is offering the module in either 16GB or 32GB eMMC versions, both with 8GB LPDDR4.

USB3 cameras comply with the USB3 Vision standard, which is based on GigE Vision, but uses USB 3.0 instead of Gigabit Ethernet. The cameras have a faster 350MB/s bandwidth than the 125MB/s GigE, although their cables only reach up to 5-10 meters compared to 100 meters for GigE. The standard defines a machine vision interface for integrating the cameras with compatible cables and image processing libraries.

In addition to the 4x TF-38 USB3 ports, which can simultaneously stream 4x Blackfly S cams, the Quartet TX2 supplies standard USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and micro-USB OTG ports. Other features include a microSD slot, a SATA connector, and a fan connector.

The Quartet TX2 has a 10-24VDC terminal block input with a power switch and LED, and offers a -20 to 60°C operating range. You can purchase the board with or without the Jetson TX2.

Further information

No pricing or availability information was provided for the Quartet TX2, which was announced by various publications including EENews Embedded. More information may be found on Teledyne Flir’s product page.