Antrica has integrated an AI accelerator onto a video encoder board to improve compression and reduce power for UAVs, writes Nick Flaherty.

The ANT-1776AI video encoder was designed specifically for UAV applications and adds the Hailo-8 accelerator to provide edge processing and multi-stream video capabilities directly to UAVs and tactical surveillance systems.

This allows UAV platforms to collect, process and transmit intelligence instantly without adding unnecessary weight or power draw.

The Hailo-8 accelerator supports object detection and classification as well as target tracking and custom AI workloads.

By performing AI tasks directly on the device, UAVs and mobile platforms gain faster insight, lower latency and dramatically reduced bandwidth requirements, perfect for real-time missions.

The multi-stream H.264/H.265 video encoder supports a wide range of camera inputs, including four for CVBS (PAL/NTSC), one HD-SDI 1080p60 and two USB 3.0.

The ANT-1776AI supports streaming over both wired and wireless networks using unicast, multicast and broadcast modes as well as UDP, RTP and RTSP protocols with Forward Error Correction. This flexibility makes it suitable for any UAV downlink, tactical mesh network or long-range communication system.

Having the AI framework on the board reduces latency to 100–150 ms, depending on the rest of the system specification.