Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - April 2022 - 16

Smart Mobility
"
When we catch the corner of a third-row seat, the breathing of a baby
covered in a blanket can be picked up in the seat movement.
"
Systems integration and micro-electronics expertise are enabling Gentex to engineer
camera and laser-projection systems into the rear-view mirror module.
'Fingerprinting' the cabin
Tech veteran Boehm speaks proudly of what Guardian
and Vaporsens have brought to the Gentex family,
envisioning many potential use cases. Guardian was
founded in 2015 to commercialize in-cabin monitoring
systems and find solutions for fatalities and
find solutions for hot-vehicle fatalities,
through
advanced occupant sensing and alerts. Its technology
uses a high-resolution, IR-sensitive optical sensor that
combines machine vision with micro-vibration and
depth detection. The camera can detect movement as
miniscule as one micron - a level of sensitivity that can
pick up a baby's breathing, a rate of change of breathing,
and even its heartbeat, Boehm explained. Detecting that
Gentex's scalable approach is opening up in-cabin opportunities
for the Tier 1, both for AVs and conventional
vehicles, said CTO Neil Boehm.
an impaired adult is about to pass out is also within the
sensor's capabilities.
" There is growing industry discussion about how
to detect something in a vehicle seat, and is that something
a person? If they're covered up with blanket,
you don't get the visual features, " he noted. General
Motors, Nissan and Hyundai have been early integrators
of rear-seat occupant alert systems, using a
variety of audio and visual reminders. Hyundai uses
ultrasonic sensors mounted inside the headliners of
two of its SUVs.
AV vs. ADAS: How Gentex's CEO sees it
During SAE Media's visit to Gentex headquarters,
we asked CEO Steve Downing about how
he sees full vehicle autonomy playing out.
" Driver-assist systems, ADAS, are going to
Gentex CEO Steve Downing.
continue to be in the vast majority of vehicles
sold, because a lot of people still want to drive
themselves and experience the vehicle. But they
want an assist system where necessary, " Downing
said. " Seven years ago, the industry thought
it was all about autonomous, with projections
for 100 million cars a year. The reality is, we're a
lot closer to [SAE] Level 4 and that's where the
driver monitoring technology becomes really
important. But I think there's going to be a lot
more bifurcation in the marketplace than what
the industry thought initially. "
He noted that AVs for taxi or ride-sharing fleets
will drive need for tech that supplements a vehicle's
autonomous operation.
" A lot of what we're doing are creature comforts
that would be valuable even when you're
driving the car, " he said. That means developing
other sensing that will be needed to make that
vehicle more useful and helpful to an OEM and to
the consumer after Level-4 capability is achieved.
Lindsay Brooke
16 April 2022
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING
Lindsay Brooke
Gentex
Lindsay Brooke
Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - April 2022

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