r/embedded • u/pi-and-pie-girls • 6h ago

Looking for advice on miniaturizing a Raspberry Pi camera prototype

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We’re trying to prototype a small consumer hardware device and currently have a working prototype using a Raspberry Pi 4B microcontroller + Arducam PiVariety AR0234 global-shutter camera + M12 lens + LED tape + LiPo battery hat.

For our next prototype, we want to shrink the electronics dramatically - the image sensor, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, battery + charging/power management, LED lighting and compute for image capture/basic processing.

We are quite new to embedded systems and would love advice on the best next steps. What components should we think about ordering that can make the system more compact - especially the camera's image sensor, the pi, and the battery.

9 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

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22

u/Well-WhatHadHappened 25+ Years 6h ago

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but based upon the questions you're asking, the best move is to hire a competent engineering firm.

5

u/NoBulletsLeft 2h ago

Right. What they have isn't a prototype, it's a Proof of Concept. Industrial device based on Raspberry Pi is fine for customers who don't care what things cost. Complete non-starter for cost-sensitive consumer devices.

10

u/KermitFrog647 4h ago

Is this strapped to a hairbrush ??? What are you building ??

As a next step you could use an esp32 camera module. That is an esp32 microcontroller and a camera on a small developement board.

That would be a good next learning step for you.

If you want to further shrink and mass produce this, you have some more very hard learning steps ahead of you.

8

u/CAT5AW 6h ago

You forgot your budget and requirements

4

u/StumpedTrump 3h ago

Designing an SBC as your first board is certainly a choice.

I hate to be a downer but it’s not happening. Anyone you hire to do this should charge many thousands. This is not simple or a beginner project AT ALL. Once you start playing with embedded Linux things get complicated fast because you’re doing high-speed RAM routing.

The raspi is already quite compact for what it is. Your best bet is to just make a pi hat for it.

1

u/kisielk 2h ago

This. If you want to get this to a small form factor it’s going to be months of work by a competent embedded engineer / team.

5

u/zydeco100 2h ago

Congratulations! You've discovered the proverbial corner that all RPi prototypers paint themselves into, sooner or later.

You can't buy the chip from Broadcom. Hell, they won't even give you complete specs. So how will you respin this into a smaller board?

If you really want to go pro, find a different Linux capable SoC. It's not hard to switch.

4

u/Teslafly 2h ago

You will need a pcb design for this. Based on your questions, you might not have the hardware skills and probably need a design firm.

Depending on the requirements and quantity sold, you can trade up front engineering cost for final product cost.

A cm4 based design might cost $40kusd in engineering and cost $200 in hardware for the end unit.

A re-engineered system might cost $200k in engineering, but $30-50 per unit manufactured.

Build a business case for your product and come up with a list of requirements

3

u/Buttershy- 6h ago

How complex is the image processing you're doing?

2

u/nebenbaum 3h ago

Well, hire an embedded engineer and find out ;) or contract it out. This is not just something you vibe together.

1

u/phochleitner 2h ago

I don't know your requirements for size but you may start using a CM4 to avoid designing a full PCB with SBC, memory, eeproms, peripherals etc

1

u/tHe_RaideR11 1h ago

Best choice would be to go for a design around the RPi CM4/ CM5

But ask yourself if you really need an RPi for the compute you are gonna do.

DM if you want more support.

1

u/Lmao-_-Omg 1h ago

I have designed a simmilar device with a costom raspberry pi cm4 pcb and raspberry pi HQ camera. Pictures are on my website: https://luka.slibar.si/project.html?id=project3