An FPGA-based wavelet transforms coprocessor

Abstract

Although FPGA technology offers the potential of designing high performance systems at low cost for a wide range of applications, its programming model is prohibitively low level requiring either a dedicated FPGA-experienced programmer or basic digital design knowledge. To allow a signal/image processing end-user to benefit from this kind of device, the level of design abstraction needs to be raised, even beyond a hardware description language level (e.g. VHDL). This approach will help the application developer to focus on signal/image processing algorithms rather than on low-level designs and implementations. This paper aims to present a framework for an FPGA-based coprocessor dedicated to discrete wavelet transforms (DWT). The proposed approach will help the end-user to generate FPGA configurations for DWT at the highest level without any knowledge of the low-level design styles and architectures.