Customers expect the highest-quality video surveillance that technology allows. To deliver this, not only is it essential to control as much of the overall production process as is possible, but it is also of significant benefit to produce the most fundamental aspect of the camera: the system-on-chip (SoC).
The ARTPEC SoC – first released in products in 1999 and now in its ninth iteration – is the foundation that allows Axis to deliver the highest quality network cameras possible. Specifically designed for video surveillance with a focus on performance, the latest ARTPEC-9 SoC refines the remarkable capabilities that characterized previous generations of our SoC: low bitrate, AI-powered analytics, superior imaging, and built-in cybersecurity. It also introduces AV1, an open-source video encoding standard from the Alliance for Open Media. Support for AV1, and enhanced image processing delivers high-quality video with uncompromised detail and clarity and best-in-class bitrate. Controlling the design and manufacture of our own SoC means that Axis can create the products best optimized for customer needs, while addressing the evolution of external factors, such as threats to cybersecurity.
In-house quality
The concept of high-quality in surveillance cameras can take a number of forms. Providing high-resolution images is a given, but easy-to-use functionality that serves every customer’s specific needs is equally important. More recently, the capacity to support analytics applications, including AI-based applications on the edge, has gained significance. Central to the ability to meet every aspect of quality is the ARTPEC SoC.
The result of over two decades of development is a SoC that is unique in the market thanks to several factors. One of the main ones is the fact that the ARTPEC SoC is specified and developed in-house. At first glance, this may seem insignificant, but it actually lays the groundwork for numerous benefits that the ARTPEC SoC brings to customers.
Stefan Lundberg, Senior Expert Engineer at Axis, explains: “The ARTPEC SoC has always been optimized for efficient image processing and image compression – or in other words to fulfill the demands of the high-quality network video of tomorrow. It allows us to provide network cameras that not only offer video with extremely high image usability but also deliver high performance, good bandwidth efficiency, and the ability to run AI-based analytics at the edge. And due to in-house development, we can adapt the SoC exactly to our camera capabilities and, thereby, our customers’ needs.”
Security at the forefront
With cybersecurity being an increasingly important aspect of IP-connected cameras and a core customer concern, ARTPEC SoCs are designed with current and future threats in mind. Indeed, owning the design and controlling the manufacture of the SoC itself allows for rapid revision and optimized design in relation to the changing cybersecurity landscape.
Lundberg expands: “The fact that ARTPEC SoCs are designed in-house enables us to control the process – from architecture to finished SoC – and make sure there are no gaps in the chain that allow for the introduction of security vulnerabilities. Knowing our SoCs in such detail gives us a better chance of identifying and mitigating potential security risks much earlier than might otherwise be the case.”
The latest generation of the SoC, ARTPEC-9, builds on cybersecurity features already introduced with ARTPEC-7. They include signed software – which ensures that only secure authorized software can be installed – and secure boot, which prevents the booting of unauthorized software. All new devices will also include Axis Edge Vault for secure storage of cryptographic keys and certificates and feature Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for FIPS-compliant secure storage.
Deep learning on the edge and additional security benefits
Another significant advantage, which was first introduced in ARTPEC-8, is support for powerful AI-based analytics ”on-the-edge,” where cameras have the processing power to analyze data on the camera itself. A principal benefit is highly granular real-time object detection and classification, which makes it possible to develop analytics that can automatically detect objects and distinguish between different kinds of objects, such as people and types of vehicles. These applications can be embedded directly into the device to analyze video without sending data to a central server. And here lies an additional security benefit: analyzing data and anonymizing and creating encrypted data on the device at the edge before it is transferred to the data center significantly reduces the potential for loss of sensitive data.
Always looking to the future
To address evolving customer needs and drive future product innovation, we continue to advance the development of our ARTPEC SoCs. Our team of expert engineers looks ahead to the future, designing the next generation of SoCs to meet the demands of tomorrow.
“The control that designing our own SoC gives us over every aspect of our products is, in our view, invaluable.” Lundberg concludes: “We are committed to developing our own SoC in-house because, first and foremost, it allows us to create optimized solutions for network video surveillance applications. This, ultimately, is the principal reason our customers and partners choose Axis cameras. That said, there are other considerations – from security-by-design to lower overall system costs. The control that designing our own SoC gives us over every aspect of our products is, in our view, invaluable. I’m sure we’ll see many iterations of the ARTPEC SoC in decades to come.”