It is becoming increasingly important for automobile makers to introduce advanced sensing capabilities into their cars for enhanced driver and passenger safety and comfort.
Among the contactless technologies that can be used for in-cabin monitoring, radar at millimeter wavelengths (mmWave) is gaining enormous momentum due to its strengths like insensitivity to lighting conditions, high sensitivity to motion, and highly accurate estimation of velocity, range and angle of arrival.
Based around this radar technology, Azcom Technology offers an automotive-compliant software solution supporting all the key in-cabin monitoring features. These features enable OEMs to build a flexible combination of end-user applications, such as NCAP Child Presence Detection, Intelligent Seatbelt Reminder, Airbag Management Systems, Anti-intrusion Alarms and Driver Monitoring.
The solution runs on Texas Instruments’ mmWave AWRx SoC, a highly accurate single-chip radar sensor family, integrating best-in-class DSP and MCU.
Key Characteristics
Automotive compliant – A-SPICE and ISO26262
Used by Tier-1 vendors in series-production
Meets EURO-NCAP roadmap for Child Presence Detection
Easily tunable for different vehicle geometry and seat configuration.
Supports parked and driving state
Easily integrable with body electronics via CAN interface
Supports 60 GHz and 79 GHz bands
Child (Life) Presence Detection
It is globally recognized that child deaths due to heatstroke suffered inside unattended cars is a severe and entirely avoidable problem that deserves special attention.
Global agencies like NCAP have decided to address this important safety issue by including the Child Presence Detection feature in their roadmap and rewarding it considerably. This feature detects the presence of a child inside the car to alert the driver and raise an alarm, when appropriate.
Azcom has developed a solution that can reliably detect any lifeform in the vehicle, to address two main use cases:
Child Presence Detection
Intrusion Detection
Occupancy Localization
The ability to reliably detect contactless whether and how the car cabin is occupied by passengers is becoming an important use case for car manufacturers. Principal applications of this capability are next generation seat belt reminder functions and intelligent airbag management.
In case of autonomous vehicles, it will also be critical to continuously monitor vehicle occupancy without creating privacy concerns.
Radar sensors, combined with special ad hoc algorithms, are well-suited for such applications.
Based on such radar technology, Azcom’s solution allows reliable detection of occupancy of the entire cabin in a driving vehicle
Seat Belt Reminder
Intelligent Airbags
Passengers’ Classification
In addition to identifying and localizing the presence of a passenger inside a car, most of the upcoming intelligent monitoring systems are also requested to classify the passengers into different classes, such as adult or child. 3D imaging radar sensors provide enough resolution and accuracy to open the possibility of adopting modern machine learning techniques and solve this problem.
Azcom offers a solution for passenger classification that can be combined with other safety features to build a complete interior radar-based monitoring system.
Driverless Vehicles
Intelligent Airbags
Vital Signs Monitoring
A mmWave radar sensor is capable of measuring body displacements due to breathing and heartbeat. This capability can be used to track and monitor driver’s and passengers’ vital signs. This feature finds applications in driver drowsiness or distraction warning systems, and post-crash monitoring systems.
Azcom’s In-Cabin Monitoring solution is also capable of monitoring vehicle occupants’ breathing and heart rate.
Driver’s Monitoring
After Crash Analysis
Learn More About Our Solution
Other Applications with Radar Sensors
MmWave radar sensors can be adopted in a wide range of sensing applications. Azcom Technology offering of value-added R&D services helps customers developing solutions for different domains based on this technology.
