Get Started with ZED Box

The Stereolabs’ ZED Box is a compact gateway powered by NVIDIA® Jetson™ for challenging AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) in mobile and field situations. It is designed to bring spatial perception and understanding at the edge and aggregate, process and analyze data from 3D sensors and equipments.

Features #

• 3D AI at the edge: Empower AI computing at the edge of your camera network with the ZED Box powered by powerful NVIDIA® Jetson™ for spatial intelligence applications.

• PoE+ Powered: Deploy smart 3D cameras anywhere in the field using PoE+, enabling long-range and outdoor coverage, simplified cabling infrastructure and easier maintenance.

• Compact Fanless Design: With a rugged aluminum and fanless chassis, this embedded computer packs the power of a supercomputer into a small form factor (109 x 92 x 52 mm).

• A Broad Range of Applications: The ZED Box can be used for a growing number of industrial use-cases such as video analytics, robotics, interactive experiences, and many more.

• Designed for Camera and Sensor Processing: Unleash the full capabilities of ZED camera series. Easily and seamlessly connect to all ZED camera models for fast ingest and processing of the live 3D data.

• Compliance for 24/7 Operation: The ZED Box is a ruggedized and field-tested embedded system, which makes it suitable for 24/7 deployment in many types of environments.

Technical Specifications #

The Stereolabs’ ZED Box comes with two NVIDIA® Jetson™ module options. Choose between NVIDIA® TX2 NX and NVIDIA® Xavier NX for more performance.

Installation #

Connection panel #

All the connection ports are available in the front panel.

1. Micro USB port (OTG - Firmware upgrade)
2. USB 3.0 port
3. HDMI port
4. USB 2.0 port
5. Power Status LED
6. Network PoE+ * port
7. 12V AC/DC Power Adapter port

(*) PoE+ specifications: #

• Max Power: 25.50 W
• Voltage: 42.5 ~ 57 V
• Current: 600 mA
• Cabling: Category 5

01. Plug in the power supply (optional) #

Connect the provided power supply to the jack connector, if you do not use PoE+ feature.

02. Connect to your network #

Connect to your network using the PoE+ Ethernet port.

📌 Note: A PoE+* enabled switch is needed to power the system without using the jack connector.

📌 Note: The default hostname of the device is its serial number and it is reported on the bottom of the case below the QR-Code.

03. Connect to your display #

Connect to your display by using the HDMI port.

04. Connect your keyboard and mouse #

Connect your keyboard and mouse using the 2.0 USB port and a USB hub.

05. Complete the operating system setup #

System access credentials

To access the operating system upon first start-up, use the following default access credentials:

• Username: user
• Password: admin

📌 Note: For security reasons we suggest you change the default password after the first boot by opening the “Settings” menu and by selecting the “User” voice.

ZED SDK download procedure

To download the latest version of the ZED SDK for your system, you need to know which JetPack version is currently installed. To do so, open the command prompt on your ZED Box and enter the following command line:

$ apt-cache policy nvidia-jetpack

Command line result preview:

nvidia-jetpack:
    Installed: 4.5.1-b17
    ...        

In this case, your JetPack version is then 4.5.

Then, go to www.stereolabs.com/developers/release, click on the “SDK Downloads” tab and scroll down to find the corresponding ZED SDK for the JetPack version of your NVIDIA® Jetson™ system.

To get started, learn more about the ZED SDK and start building apps today, go to stereolabs.com/developers.

06. Connect your ZED camera #

📌 Note: The ZED camera must be connected to the USB 3.0 port to be able to acquire data at maximum resolution and framerate.

Install on a wall with brackets #

Screw the brackets to the case:

Screw the ZED Box to the wall:

📌 Note: Screws for the wall are not included.

Network access #

An ssh server is available to remotely access the ZED Box in case it is not possible to access it by using the graphical interface provided by the Ubuntu operating system.

You can use the IP address of the ZED Box, if you know it, or the hostname that is reported on the bottom of the case just below the QR Code.

Ubuntu commands:

$ ssh user@<ip address of the ZED Box>

or

$ ssh user@<hostname of the ZED Box>

For example:

$ ssh user@GTW-TX2NX-C13UJO4J

📌 Note: The default password is admin. You can change the password after the first connection with the command.

$ passwd

Add a new user #

You can add a new user with CLI the command:

$ sudo useradd -m <username> # add user and create the home directory

Set the password for the new user:

$ sudo passwd <username>

Update/Reset #

To update/reset the ZED Box please follow the NVIDIA® online guide and use the NVIDIA® SDK Manager.

It is important to choose Manual Setup instead of Automatic Setup in the Step 3 of the SDK Manager guide

Ignore the visual instruction to boot the board in “Force Recovery Mode”, follow instead the instruction in the section “Force Recovery mode” to correctly restart the ZED Box in “Recovery Mode”.

ZED Box model Jetson TX2 NX #

If you encounter any problems during this procedure with the ZED Box model TX2 NX, you can follow the “manual flashing” guide.

ZED Box model Jetson Xavier NX and JetPack 5.x.x #

When upgrading the Xavier NX model to the latest NVIDIA® JetPack v5.0.2/L4T v35.1 or later, do not select the M.2 SDD NVMe as storage device. Otherwise, the installation will fail. If you want to use the SSD storage of the ZED Box. We provide a script that moves everything to the NVMe after the installation.

When the SDK Manager shows the following window, please select EMMC in the combo box 8. Storage Device, and click the Flash button to start the process:

When the flash process is completed, SDK manager asks for the IP address of the ZED Box to install the JetPack.

Do not continue the installation. Keep the SDK Manager open. Keep the OTG USB cable plugged in.

Connect an HDMI display and a keyboard to the ZED Box. It will boot, maybe after a few minutes.

Once logged in, download this script on your desktop and execute it:

sudo chmod +x zedbox_installation_move_rootfs.sh
sudo ./zedbox_installation_move_rootfs.sh

The script will safely move the file system from the internal memory eMMC storage to the NVMe storage.

Finally, reboot the ZED Box.

Once the ZED Box rebooted correctly, you can continue the process of SDK manager on the host PC to install the JetPack.

Force Recovery mode #

It is not required to open the ZED Box to force it in Recovery mode.

Here is the procedure to automatically start the ZED Box in Force Recovery mode:

• power off the device.
• connect a micro USB cable to the host PC performing the upgrade/reset.
• connect the cable to the micro USB port of the device labeled as OTG.
• power on the device.

If the ZED Box is in a working status and you can normally boot it, you can also force the “Recovery Mode” by command line:

$ sudo reboot --force forced-recovery

You can verify that the ZED Box correctly started in “Recovery Mode” by entering this command in a command line console of the host PC:

 $ lsusb -d '0955:'

If the model of the ZED Box is TX2 NX, then a device with VID:PID 0955:7c18 should be listed.

If the model of the ZED Box is Xavier NX, then a device with VID:PID 0955:7e19 should be listed.

Manually flashing the ZED Box TX2 NX model #

If the NVIDIA® SDK Manager fails to flash the ZED Box model TX2 NX, it is possible to complete the procedure “manually”:

• Open a terminal console.
• $ cd ~/nvidia/nvidia_sdk/JetPack_<version>_Linux_JETSON_TX2_TARGETS/Linux_for_Tegra/
• Verify that the ZED Box is in “Force Recovery” mode.
• $ sudo ./flash.sh jetson-xavier-nx-devkit-tx2-nx mmcblk0p1
• Wait for the operation to complete.

If you encounter any problems during this procedure, you can contact the support team by sending an email to support@stereolabs.com.