AUTOMOTIVE
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3D vision-based DMS Another organisation working on driver monitoring technology is the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF, which has developed a miniature wide-angle 3D camera in collaboration with car manufacturer BMW. Te camera, which attaches to the
rear-view mirror, can be used to capture people and objects, as well as their position, movement, and shape in three dimensions. It also offers safety features such as hand- on-steering-wheel detection, seat belt detection, and seat occupancy monitoring coupled with airbag control. Airbag control involves adapting the way the airbag opens, depending on how someone is sitting, to prevent injuries. Te camera works by emitting light pulses
that reflect off of objects and are used to calculate a point cloud. By comparing these point clouds with known shapes, people as well as objects such as child safety seats, can be identified. Like Ams Osrams’ Icarus proof-of- concept, Fraunhofer IOF is also focusing on hand gestures. With gesture control, drivers can access their car’s dashboard and infotainment features with a wave of their hand. While this makes life easier for drivers when changing a playlist, for example, it also aims to improve safety – by minimising distractions that may come from using buttons or screens. Again at the Laser World of Photonics,
Christian Vetter, Head of Advanced Imaging Design at Fraunhofer IOF, told Imaging and Machine Vision Europe: “Te goal is to completely monitor the inside of the car using depth recognition. You can see basically if the kids are waving in the back, or if the person in the front wants to skip to the next track in the music. It can recognise hand gestures.” Vetter explained that there are hurdles when it comes to developing a DMS,
26 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2023 @imveurope |
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however: “You want to use a time-of-flight sensor. But the problem is that time-of-flight sensors typically have very low resolution. And if you have low resolution, people will be very distorted in the image, which means you have to move your pixels around. And it’s not really possible to compensate for that with a low-resolution sensor.” Explaining how Fraunhofer IOF and
BMW overcame this problem, Vetter said: “We came up with a technology where we have multiple stacked microlens systems to enable full aberration correction. We are redirecting the field of view with the presence outside. Tis means we have six images of different areas on the sensor, which can be stacked together to form a full image. Because of this arrangement, each individual channel is less distorted than a fisheye objective would be.” Like Ams Osram, Fraunhofer IOF is
striving for compactness, with its wide-angle 3D camera measuring just 10mm across. “Te camera can be extremely tiny and goes
Above & Bsoelow: Fraunhofer IOF’s miniaturised wide-angle 3D camera can be mounted on the underside of a vehicle’s rear-view mirror
‘It’s an audio-visual alert with visible LEDs…the dashboard could turn red, or the steering wheel could vibrate’
on the rear-view mirror, and it can look all around the car,” said Vetter. He added: “Te advantage of having just
one camera is you just have to route one cable. You could put 20 cameras in the car, but then you’d have to route 20 cables. You don’t want to put 20 cameras in there, because one will break every two weeks. Te fewer breaking points, the better!” “Te project, as far as I know, is finished,”
he continued. “Te camera already survived the temperature tests, from minus 40 to plus 80 degrees.” So, it seems, DMS technology is not far
off. Come next year, the driving experience may be very different, and – hopefully – far safer. O
Fraunhofer IOF
Fraunhofer IOF
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