Melexis and emotion3D offer driver monitoring system

Melexis and emotion3D’s novel driver monitoring system (DMS) uses time-of-flight and covers all basic functions, such as driver drowsiness and attention warning to conform to the EU’s General Safety Regulation and Euro NCAP’s testing protocols. In addition, the demonstrator provides 3D locations of the driver’s facial landmarks, which are required for an optimal AR-based, head-up display for the user. The objects projected by the HUD require precise alignment with real-world objects, following the dynamic position changes of the driver.

The demonstrator consists of a camera built around Melexis’s MLX75027 3D ToF sensor and emotion3D’s advanced in-cabin analysis software (E3D ICMS). Melexis says that the software can be flexibly integrated in any automotive system on a chip.

Said Florian Seitner, CEO of emotion3D: “Regulatory requirements make it necessary to integrate DMSs into new vehicles and augmented reality head-up displays [are becoming] more and more popular. Our combined system offers a highly precise and cost-efficient solution for automotive manufacturers”.

Gualtiero Bagnuoli, product marketing manager at Melexis, comments on the benefits of ToF technology: “We combine accurate and robust 3D eye position detection for HUD with sunlight invariant eye gaze and eye openness detection for leaner DMS algorithm implementations.

“Use of ToF technology is key. It is very easy to get accurate depth data from the 3D ToF sensor with low processing effort. The result is that the DMS and HUD algorithms work impressively well with wide-field of view lenses and VGA [Video Graphics Array] resolution ToF sensors.”