Seeing Machines Extends Its Industry-Leading DMS To Occupant Monitoring

Seeing Machines, the advanced computer vision technology company that designs AI-powered operator monitoring systems to improve transport safety has announced it is formally expanding its leading automotive driver monitoring system (DMS) into an overall vehicle interior/Occupant Monitoring System (OMS). The expanded offering will be available for automotive production programs starting as early as 2023.

Seeing Machines estimates that its entry into OMS opens an incremental market opportunity, worth up to a total of A$1.5 billion through to 2030, with an estimated revenue opportunity for the Company exceeding A$350 million.

This expansion is consistent with Seeing Machines’s “safety first” focus and leverages important breakthroughs in achieving uncompromised head, eye, and face tracking for driver monitoring with a Wide Field of View (WFOV) camera system. It will extend the Company’s highly effective attention, distraction, impairment, identification, and other human state measures from the vehicle driver to vehicle passenger(s) concurrently.

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The introduction of a WFOV interior OMS will continue to support even the most challenging Euro NCAP DMS and semi-automated driving requirements which are traditionally achieved today with a narrow view (driver exclusive) camera system, while at the same time extending safety, comfort, and convenience feature to passengers. OMS capabilities range from enabling more reliable and cost-effective passive safety systems to fully AI-enabled interiors able to anticipate and care for the needs of both the driver and passenger(s).

Further, the approach, enabled by Seeing Machines’s Occula® Neural Processing Unit (NPU) technology, allows a DMS to be expanded into an WFOV Interior camera system offering an array of additional high-value interior and occupant sensing features with little increase in-camera, illumination, or embedded processing cost. This can be achieved with readily available and proven automotive image sensors and other components, greatly enhancing the value of the Company’s existing product offering which remains consistent with the previously announced “three pillars” delivery options. This includes:

1. A market-leading Xilinx FPGA based FOVIO Chip incorporating Occula® NPU acceleration for the lowest cost, fastest time to market, standalone DMS/OMS system processing solution, targeting smart camera integration into a range of suitable locations including instrument panels and rear-view mirrors
2. Accelerated and non-accelerated Software Libraries (e-DME) which support a wide array of processing platforms, and integration sites including Infotainment Systems and ADAS domain modules, including the previously announced Qualcomm SnapDragon solution.
3. Occula® NPU ASIC licensing to automotive system on Chip (SOC) suppliers desiring to embed a uniquely optimized acceleration solution for achieving uncompromised human and object detection and tracking performance for camera-based DMS and interior/occupant monitoring systems at the lowest possible cost of processing.

Demonstrations of Seeing Machines combined Driver and Interior/Occupant monitoring technology are presently available consistent with potential 2023 model introductions.

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Nick DiFiore, SVP, and GM Automotive commented: “I’m proud of the methodical approach our researchers have taken toward the interior and occupant monitoring problem, avoiding the ‘feature wars’ in favor of system safety through continued uncompromised Driver Monitoring availability and performance while maintaining a low embedded processing cost enabled by our Occula NPU technology; a combination that eludes more academic-oriented – brute force – deep learned network approaches.

“We expect our automotive Tier 1 and OEM customers to be excited by the reality of a non-compromised DMS ready for any Euro NCAP eventuality, with the promise of extending safety and convenience features to vehicle passengers without inflating the overall system cost. This is a very important step in our company vision, to truly enable automobiles to see, understand, secure, and assist its occupants.”

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