This article will be included in the AI Edge Solutions series. You can find more exciting articles about AI edge solutions in the service menu of our public account.
With the AI boom brought by the release of ChatGPT, which has lasted for nearly two years, we are pleased to see many new AI applications emerging. However, contrary to our expectations that AI would change everything and replace many jobs, the situation with general AI models does not seem as dramatic as we imagined.
Unlike many who focus their attention on cloud computing, large models, and general applications, there has been rapid progress in small AI applications at the edge in recent years. The final applications and implementations are local, with real-time operations and responses occurring locally. The combination of edge computing with cloud computing has always been a focus of edge computing. In recent years, as general language models continue to mature, more intelligent applications can be created by combining them with local edge computing nodes.
This series of articles will introduce and analyze 100 AI edge intelligent solutions. They may consist of just an AI edge computer with a few sensors or be slightly more complex with added cloud transmission and display features. We believe these interesting applications and solutions can provide useful insights for you. In this article, we will introduce the hardware structure, components, and features of the Orange Pi.
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01. About Orange Pi
Orange Pi is a single-board computer similar to the Raspberry Pi, designed to provide developers and enthusiasts with a low-cost, high-performance, low-power embedded development platform. Compared to the Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi offers better performance and more expansion interfaces in many aspects, but it may have a relatively smaller community and resources. However, there is a wealth of official documentation available for learning. Moreover, Orange Pi is officially developed by Shenzhen Xunlong Software Co., Ltd.
Orange Pi has a wide range of application scenarios, including but not limited to home media centers, automation control, the Internet of Things, education, and more. It is often used in DIY projects such as smart homes, robots, and game consoles, and is also used as a learning and teaching tool to help people learn computer science and electronic engineering knowledge.
In 2014, the first open-source product of Orange Pi was officially launched. Due to its excellent cost-performance ratio and user experience, it quickly surpassed its peers and caused a sensation in the edge computing industry. After years of technological innovation and market research, Orange Pi has iterated over 30 products, becoming a product that can compete with Raspberry Pi in the edge computing and hardware development board industry.
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02. Orange Pi Edge Box – Orange Pi 5
Orange Pi 5 Pro features the new generation octa-core RK3588S 64-bit processor, specifically four cores of A76+ and four cores of A55. This is one of the strongest flagship chips from Rockchip, designed with a 8nm process, with a main frequency of up to 2.4GHz, integrating ARM Mali-G610, and featuring a built-in 3D GPU, compatible with OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2; the embedded NPU supports INT4/INT8/INT16 mixed operations, with a computing power of up to 6TOPS, meeting the edge computing needs of most terminal devices. The device can analyze camera streams and run advanced machine learning models on collected sensor data.
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03. Orange Pi AI Box – Powered by Huawei Ascend Chip
In the field of edge computing, besides ordinary edge computing boxes, many edge computing boxes have been focusing on edge AI computing in recent years. Orange Pi has also launched the AI box Orange Pi AIpro, which is a new generation edge computing AI box developed in collaboration with Huawei Ascend, using Huawei Ascend AI GPU chips, integrated image processors, and offering 8GB/16GB LPDDR4X, making it an excellent entry-level AI development board.
OrangePi AI pro(8-12T) adopts the Ascend AI technology route, specifically a 4-core 64-bit processor + AI processor, integrated graphics processor, supporting 8-12TOPS AI computing power, with 8GB/16GB LPDDR4X, and can connect external eMMC modules of 32GB/64GB/128GB/256GB, supporting dual 4K HD output. OrangePi AIpro(8-12T) features a rich array of interfaces, including two HDMI outputs, GPIO interfaces, Type-C power interfaces, supporting SATA/NVMe SSD 2280 M.2 slots, TF slots, Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB3.0, one USB Type-C 3.0, one Micro USB (serial print debugging function), two MIPI cameras, and one MIPI screen, with reserved battery interfaces, making it widely applicable in AI edge computing, deep vision learning, video stream AI analysis, video image analysis, natural language processing, smart cars, robotic arms, artificial intelligence, drones, cloud computing, AR/VR, smart security, smart home, and other fields, covering all industries of AIoT. OrangePi AIpro(8-12T) supports Ubuntu and openEuler operating systems, meeting the needs of most AI algorithm prototype verification and inference application development.
The Orange Pi AIpro development board is a high-performance artificial intelligence computing platform carefully created by Orange Pi in collaboration with Huawei. Its core selling point is its high scalability as a high-performance platform. People choose it for its computing power and user-friendly open platform, which can be used to run various AI applications.
The current Orange Pi AIpro can fully meet the needs of edge computing scenarios, especially supporting real-time video input and analysis. Many of our subsequent solutions and applications will utilize this development board from Orange Pi. Moreover, the collaboration with Huawei Ascend allows the use of many underlying models already published by Huawei in practical applications.
