OmniVision Automotive Image Sensors Compatible with NVIDIA DRIVE Platform, Including Driver Monitoring Imagers for NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion

At GTC 2021, OmniVision Will Demonstrate Image Sensor Families on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX AI Computing Platform for Autonomous Vehicles and ADAS

OmniVision Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions, announced at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC) that it has officially joined the NVIDIA DRIVE autonomous vehicle development ecosystem. The company also unveiled the first group of OmniVision automotive image sensor families compatible with the modular NVIDIA DRIVE AGX™ AI computing platform for self-driving vehicles.

OmniVision created drivers and camera modules using its OX08B40 image sensor for front-view automotive applications, including ADAS and Level 3+ autonomous systems. Likewise, drivers and camera modules are now available for its OX03F10 and OX03C10 viewing camera image sensors, allowing the development of surround view systems (SVSs), rearview cameras (RVCs) and e-mirror camera monitoring systems with NVIDIA DRIVE. In addition, OmniVision’s OV2311 and a new 5MP sensor are the exclusive driver monitoring system (DMS) image sensors for the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion turnkey evaluation architecture.

“Many of our automotive OEM and tier-1 customers are choosing the NVIDIA DRIVE platform due to its high performance, comprehensiveness and flexibility,” said Paul Wu, automotive staff marketing manager at OmniVision.

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“We are excited to become an NVIDIA DRIVE ecosystem partner, with three of our premium automotive image sensor families and many more to be added. Our goal is to accelerate time to market for autonomous and ADAS applications by reducing the development effort and cost. We are also the sensor provider for driver and occupant monitoring systems on the next-generation NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform— a complete, turnkey hardware and software solution.”

The NVIDIA DRIVE AGX AI computing platform offers automotive designers the flexibility to use NVIDIA hardware with its full stack DRIVE software, or develop their own custom software. Additionally, they have the freedom to use the platform solely for in-cabin or autonomous driving applications, or for both. Regardless of the application, OmniVision offers platform software drivers for its image sensors, as well as complete camera modules that customers can easily connect to the NVIDIA DRIVE platform for immediate evaluation. OmniVision also provides custom tuning services.

“Adding innovative suppliers like OmniVision to our open AV development platform is a key element of accelerating automotive breakthroughs with NVIDIA DRIVE,” said Glenn Schuster, senior director of sensor ecosystems at NVIDIA. “Together with our growing ecosystem of forward-looking platform partners, we are integrating GPU technology and AI to change how the world drives and empower vehicles to drive themselves.”

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The first three qualified image sensor families offer unique benefits to automotive system designers. The OV2311 features 2MP resolution for DMS applications, and was the industry’s first automotive-grade imager to offer a global shutter for minimal driver-motion artifacts. The new 5MP image sensor maintains OmniVision’s record as the only provider of automotive global shutter-image sensors, while increasing the resolution to 5MP. It also adds OmniVision’s groundbreaking Nyxel near-infrared (NIR) technology, for the best image captures in low- to no-light conditions. Nyxel technology uses novel silicon semiconductor architectures and processes to achieve the world’s highest quantum efficiency for DMS of 36-percent at the invisible 940nm NIR light wavelength, providing the clearest driver images for use by AI software algorithms.

As the industry’s first automotive image sensor with 140dB HDR, along with the best LED flicker mitigation (LFM) performance and high 8.3MP resolution, the OX08B40 enables superior front-view captures, regardless of external lighting conditions. This feature is powered by OmniVision’s on-chip HALE (HDR and LFM Engine) combination algorithm, which is unique in simultaneously providing industry-leading LFM and HDR over the entire automotive temperature range.

Likewise, the OX03C10 and OX03F10 are still the world’s only automotive viewing camera image sensors to combine a large 3.0-micron pixel with the HALE algorithm for minimized motion artifacts and the best LFM performance. The OX03C10 also has the lowest power consumption of any 2.5MP LFM image sensor—25-percent lower than the nearest competitor. Additionally, it provides the industry’s smallest package size, enabling the placement of cameras that continuously run at 60 fps in even the tightest spaces for stringent styling requirements, all of which are ideal for RVCs and SVSs. The OX03F10 widens the vertical resolution to 1920x1536p, which provides the high image quality needed when feeding SVS captures into autonomous machine vision systems. The OX03F10’s wider array is also essential in e-mirror applications, for greater coverage and blind-spot elimination.

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