What is APRON?

APRON (Array Processing Environment) is a suite of tools and scripts that can be used to investigate and experiment with array based algorithms and ideas. It is a highly visual environment, where you can inspect array contents in real-time during running simulations. You can even interact with and change parameters during a running simulation – a great way to gain an intuitive understanding of array based algorithms and models!

APRON is largely developed by David R W Barr, (with contributions from others) who is a research associate of Piotr Dudek, working in the Microelectronics Design Laboratory at the University of Manchester, UK.

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APRON was designed to provide fast and flexible simulations of:

  • Image Processing
  • Video Processing
  • Biologically Inspired Neural Networks
  • Computer Vision
  • Cellular Non-linear Networks (CNN)
  • Cellular Processor Arrays

…and is fast enough to be used as a core computational component of many real-time and robotic systems.

APRON is not a library of software functions. It is an semi-compiled/interpreted programming language, with highly optimised routines implementing many common and uncommonly used array operations. Algorithms are written in APRON-Script, which is a high-level functional “assembly-like” language, making it ideal for both low-level applications (such as modelling new processor architectures), and high-level (feature recognition in bio-inspired visual systems).

This video shows the typical workflow and algorithm development experience:

 

If APRON lacks a certain function, it is very easy to extend the core instruction set. In fact, this is encouraged! Creating a plug-in is very simple, requiring the implementation of just 1 function. The process of extending APRON is documented with screen-shots!

To date, APRON has been integrated/extended to use:

  • USB Webcams
  • FireWire cameras
  • Neuromorphic Systems
    • Silicon Retina
    • Silicon Cochlea
  • Robot arms
  • Servos
  • Pan and Tilt
  • Custom Vision Sensors
    • SCAMP3 & SCAMP4
    • ASPA2 & ASPA3
  • Beowulf Clusters
  • MatLAB
  • UDP/TCP Networking
  • iCub
  • Yarp
  • CUDA

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