How can future vehicles detect the physical state of their occupants in a reliable and inclusive way?
Recent legislation requires OEMs to incorporate driver monitoring in new vehicles, focusing on, for example, driver awareness or drowsiness. In the near future, expected expansion of such regulations will require more advanced features, such as vital sign monitoring, to create stronger awareness of vehicle occupant states.
Current Driver or Occupant Monitoring Systems
Although current Driver or Occupant Monitoring Systems may be capable of monitoring features like driver awareness, reliable monitoring of vital signs poses an entirely different challenge. Advanced methodologies are required to cope with dynamic lighting conditions and vehicle vibrations. Current optical vital sign sensing methods remain susceptible to factors like skin tone. These limitations make it difficult to extract accurate physiological signals from occupants under driving conditions.
Speckle Sensing in Automotive
Our focus
Current Driver or Occupant Monitoring Systems often use active LED illumination in the NIR range. Speckle Sensing introduces a different monitoring principle, in which this is replaced with active coherent laser illumination in the same wavelength range. Rather than monitoring variations of light absorption on the exposed tissue of vehicle occupants, Speckle Sensing observes dynamic variations in laser speckle patterns. This allows for continuous and reliable assessment of occupant vital signs, such as heart or respiratory rate.
Imec at Holst Centre
Research at imec at Holst Centre shows that this approach offers superior accuracy in contactless conditions. It is less affected by vehicle vibrations, variable light conditions, or physiology-related influences like skin tone. Proprietary advanced motion compensation algorithms and AI-supported processing methods developed by imec further improve robustness and signal quality. These characteristics open opportunities for next-generation sensing concepts in mobility environments.
Impact today
While speckle sensing is currently being developed for health and wearable applications, its inherent robustness and inclusiveness may support future in-cabin technologies that require reliable physiological insights in real-world conditions.
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