Feixiang Network News (Wei Deling / Wen) Even if you are not interested in driving, with the upgrading of automotive electronics in recent years, you can also clearly feel the huge upgrade of the driving experience, once may reverse into the warehouse need family to help command the driver, with the camera outside the car, sensors, and automatic parking technology, can also be easily put into place, the sensor device outside the car greatly improves the driving experience and safety.
However, for the driving experience of the inner world of the car, there is still a huge room for improvement, the driver unconsciously uses the mobile phone to reply to the message, or operates on the touch panel during high-speed travel, the back pain and eye confusion after a long time of driving, and the back row can be naughty from the car seat to free the child, the existence of safety hazards may be more sudden than the small scratch outside the car, and the risk is huge.
The in-vehicle perception market is about to grow rapidly
According to Yole's report, global car camera sales are expected to be 172 million units in 2021, and sales will reach 364 million units by 2026, and in this 5-fold growth, the fastest growth will be the internal vision camera, CAGR reached 22.4%. In the future, a car will not only be full of cameras and sensors on the outside of the car, but also greatly increase the number of cameras in the car, and the vehicle evaluation standard system Euro NCAP specifically states that an effective driver monitoring system is also a prerequisite for automatic driving, ensuring that if necessary, the control is returned to the driver who is suitable for driving and can drive.
This also means that the vehicle needs to have the ability to determine whether the driver can currently drive. The Driver Monitoring System (DMS) is a system that focuses on observing the driver, which can mainly monitor whether the driver is concentrating, whether he is distracted or dozing off, because these phenomena will seriously endanger driving safety.
Cabin/occupancy monitoring systems (CMS/OMS) are mainly used to observe the condition of passengers, for example, to remind users to avoid forgetting their children in the car after getting off the bus, according to a 2019 statistic, more than 300 children die every year because they are trapped in the car. In addition, the system also has the function of detecting passenger identification, airbag adaptation, intruder detection and so on.
For various applications of in-vehicle perception, it is undoubtedly closely related to the computer vision that is widely popular at present.
Global shutters power computer vision
"What is Computer Vision?" In fact, most people use this technology every day. Lin Guozhi, Technology Marketing Manager of ST's Asia Pacific Imaging Division, vividly introduced the current wide application of the technology at a recent media conference, whether it is facial recognition in smartphones or notebooks, or scanning guns used in supermarkets and convenience stores, all of which use computer vision.
At present, the global shutter image sensor is an important technical element for computer vision. This technology is as Lin Guozhi said, for many people are not unfamiliar, many laptops on the face recognition unlock function is through the global shutter technology to achieve, but also to achieve gesture control and privacy protection and other functions, and then with ToF and ALS for presence detection, battery life and screen brightness automatic adjustment. In addition, in a large number of application scenarios such as eye tracking and gesture control on AR/VR/MR, object detection and scene analysis in industrial control, the global shutter image sensor also plays an important role.
The reason why the global shutter is more in line with the requirements of computer vision than the rolling shutter shutter is that the rolling shutter technology is based on the principle of progressive image shooting, which is limited by the fact that the entire image has only one frame, and for fast-moving objects, the image is likely to be distorted and cannot show the original appearance of the subject. The global shutter takes the entire image at once, the shooting time is very short, and the imaging effect is also very accurate.
For example, ST's VD55G0 and VD56G3 global shutter sensors provide excellent technical guarantees for engineers to develop relevant computer vision functions in industrial automation and consumer products, with the highest quantum efficiency at 940 nm and extremely high NIR sensitivity. The resolution of the square sensor is optimally matched to the lens, greatly reducing the sensor shooting time, both accurate imaging and reducing system power consumption.
Upgrade your in-car experience
For the automotive sector, cabin occupancy monitoring requires RGB color images, driver monitoring requires NIR images, and only a single camera is needed to support both RGB and NIR. ST's global shutter sensors now offer two generations to meet the needs of in-vehicle surveillance.
The first generation of products has achieved coverage of all customer needs, including four categories of products: VD5661A has a resolution of 1.6 million, mainly used for DMS. The VD5761A has a resolution of 2.3 million and can also be used with DMS because it belongs to Mono (monochrome). And the VD6763A with color RGB and the RGB-NIR integrated VD1762A.
According to Lin Guozhi, Technical Marketing Manager of ST's Asia Pacific Imaging Division, the first generation of ST global shutter sensors has three major characteristics. The first is high contrast, which can output extremely high-contrast images; the second is the data management of RGB and NIR; and the third is high dynamics, even in environmental conditions that are too bright or too dark, hdR sensors can obtain clear images.
The second-generation VB56G4A has a resolution of 1.5 million and is mainly used for driver monitoring. It has three characteristics: high sensitivity, small sensor area and built-in processing. It is convenient for manufacturers to install inside the mechanical device by using a smaller camera module, and can also automate the processing process through the intelligent automatic exposure algorithm without manual operation.
In other words, with ST's global shutter sensors, the driver monitoring system (DMS) and cabin/occupancy monitoring system (CMS/OMS) can be implemented for the interior of the car. In addition, OEMs can choose camera modules based on ST's global shutter sensors, which can be integrated directly into automotive systems or evaluated for sensor performance.
St's global shutter sensor, in addition to enabling the monitoring function of the car's interior, also has the possibility of implementing gesture control, and manufacturers can also develop and innovate based on this sensor, allowing drivers to quickly control some vehicle functions directly through gestures, avoid distracting the operation of touch screens, and further improve safety during driving.
At the same time, ST offers products such as ToF and ambient light sensors to meet the innovative needs of manufacturers to integrate different products into various scenarios.
Once, reversing radar was a despicable thing for many old drivers, and now, all-round radar has become the standard for a large number of cars, and all drivers enjoy it. What is more worth looking forward to is that the new experience in the car is also beckoning to people.