From this tradeshow, we could see the automotive industry shift towards a greener, smarter, connected and autonomous future. In this report, we share the new products and major trends of smarter driving assistant system, Internet of Vehicle (IOV), 5G and C2VX communication technology.
Driving safety is one of the major development directions for the EV parts suppliers. Intelligent Telematics, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Driver Monitoring System are three pillars for safe driving and efficient traffic or fleet management.
Evolving telematics for enhanced driving experience
The intelligent telematics system technology is developing rapidly, driven by EV and fleet management markets. Although 4G communications and GPS technologies are primary technologies adopted for commercial vehicles and fleet management, we are seeing more new products supporting 5G technology to push toward autonomous driving and better road safety.
Clientron, a leading e-cockpit supplier, demonstrated a Simulated Electric Vehicle Platform area displaying electric vehicle C-V2X Meter Cluster, in-vehicle infotainment, Virtual OBU, AR HUD. Its 5G Meter Cluster System is a smart cockpit solution for commercial vehicle like eBus that integrates the information of battery, motor, and electrical control systems to displays in-vehicle information to the driver like car speed, battery capacity and status. It can also simultaneously send driving information to the cloud monitoring center for better fleet management. Its virtual OBU integrates all warning messages from eight major driving assistance systems in one display, allowing the driver to focus on one screen.
E-Lead Electronic showcased a series of advance driving solutions, including 3D AR HUD, 77/79GHz radar and view monitoring products. The highlight of the show is its patented 3D AR HUD technology. Its Augmented Reality Head-up Display features only half the size of the traditional 2D HUD, and large FOV and long VID. Through dynamic projection inside anywhere of eye box, its technology enables automatic adjustment for any head movement and vehicle orientation.
MiTAC Digital Technology Corporation showcases its award-winning video telematics solution – MioEYE K Series. Besides the front camera, it features inner camera and car computer connectivity with AI algorithm. The device can record of the whole vehicle environment, including driver behavior, and vehicle status, and then transmit the recorded data including instant incident footage to fleet managers through 4G network. The AI software also can also notify drivers of a potential road incident. This product is also ideal for the car insurance company who requires vehicle information or video evidence.
DMS gaining traction
Drivers status monitoring focuses on detecting driver behavior to identify potentially dangerous or illegal actions. The vision-based driver monitoring systems are widely used for fleet management. For example, logistic or bus drivers who need to drive for a long time easily fall asleep or distract while driving. With the smart DMS technology, the fleet manager can collect the recorded data and alert the drivers in real time.
Ability Enterprise’s The DMS, designed as a smart camera accessory for existing digital tachograph (T-BOX) device, can be used as commercial vehicle DVR to monitor the driver’s drowsiness, distraction, smoking, emergency posture, absence, heart rate. It can also detect if the driver is wearing a mask, especially during the pandemic.
Microjet Technology’s CurieJet sensor is an interesting device that can detect poor ventilation in the car that could make driver fatigue and increase the risk of accidents. It’s also an air quality sensor that can monitor alcohol in the car to further avoid drunk driving and tragedies. Of course, PM 2.5 and Conoravirus are heavily effected the drivers’ health when they are driving. The sensor can detect PM1 and PM2.5 to help drivers control in-car air pollution.
ADAS evolving role in EV
From L2 to L4 autonomous driving, ADAS play an essential role. ADAS is believed to boost driving safety, better than a human-only system.
To ensure cost effectiveness and more precise detection, camera and radar are two popular adoptions for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and also key components to drive autonomous driving. Cameras can help drivers recognize the object’s type and detect angles. The radar performs well in detecting the object’s location and speed.
Cub Elecparts, specializes in millimeter wave radar and tire pressure monitoring sensor (TPMS), unveiled its latest 4D imaging radar adopting NXP’s chipset. The imaging radar is expected to become an essential part of the Level 3 autonomous cars, and provide more detailed information than other types of the radars.
The company sees the growing trend of the commercial vehicle market. Athena Chi, Executive Assistant to Chairman of Cub Elecparts said, “The L3 autonomous car and above are required to install forward collision warning systems. Automakers need to ensure this system to be equipped with higher precision and resolution. Our technology can not only detect object’s location and speed but also identify the shape, and with much higher resolution.”
Arcadyan’s radar sensor integrated AI technology that enables users to understand a driver’s driving behavior such as hard braking. With rich R&D experiences in network communication and antenna technologies, its 77GHz/79GHz mmWave BSIS radars for commercial vehicles have been adopted by automakers and e-bus suppliers. Besides integrating five functions (BSD, LCA, RCTA, DOW, and RCW), Arcadyan also equips the blind-spot radar for passenger vehicles with the forward collision warning (FCW) radar to achieve traffic jam assist (TJA), autonomous emergency braking (AEB), and free space detection to provide key mmWave detectors for L2 to L4 autonomous driving.
Cameras are considered eyes of the cars. We can see more cameras are integrated with AI analysis technology to enable more accurate object detection and warning.
Caravision Technology’s solutions provides real-time image transmission and data analysis services to the fleet management platform to help improve fleet management operation efficiency. Its dual lens camera works as human eyes that combines front and rear cameras, recording real-time road conditions ahead and capturing images of driving behavior in the car, and provides advanced driving assistance functions through its AI box equipped with NVIDIA modules to achieve advanced computing, graphics and AI performance. In addition, the company displayed a thermal cameras for public transportation vehicles like buses. The thermal imaging technology ensures precise all-day detection regardless of poor climate and light conditions. Through AI technology, it can quickly detect and recognize faces and then measure body temperature. It could be used as the pandemic prevention system or used as an attendance system.
Of course, most drivers are worried about dangerous drivers like tailgater or those who weave in and out of traffic. Ability Enterprise Drive Recorder with 3 Cameras comprises of front, 360-degree cabin and rear camera. The 3ch Driver Recorder equipped with smart AI technology can detect dangerous driving behaviors, and recognize front license plate in 10 meters. In addition, its Sentry Mode features motion detection to prevent potential theft or damage of the car.
In the real world, the crowded cars and passengers on the road may influence the vehicle’s judgement. To enhance the precision of the image capture, it’s an emerging trend to incorporate AI technology to build an intelligent mobile video surveillance system. EverFocus incorporated AI technology to help smart cars to detect bulky objects or ensure precise object classification in complex urban scenarios where there are motorcyclist, pedestrian, and large vehicle drivers. The company works with MIC to develop a smart driving solution, base on Formosa Dataset, delivering multi-perspective objects detection for large commercial vehicles. Formosa Dataset includes all road levels, traffic density, weather condition (such as day and night, sunny, cloudy, rainy and foggy) in 17 counties and cities in Taiwan. The solution is ideal for automotive electronic module manufacturers and large commercial vehicle suppliers in developing AI-ADAS products, such as, FCW, BSIS, LDWS, DMS. EverFocus exhibited its AI edge embedded box PC and mobile DVR. Coupled with video cameras, they can assist drivers to have better environment perception and understanding of the traffic.
5G and V2X makes cars smarter and more connected
Arcadyan, the solution provider of mobile communication and IoV services displayed its T-box, which is a multifunctional telematic system that supports 4G and 5G V2X communications as well as cloud back-office management for real-time fleet management. With independently developed algorithm and cloud management platform, its solution enables real-time vehicle diagnostics and fleet management, assisting users to monitor vehicle movements and get vehicle information, transfer data to the cloud server, command controls between the vehicles and the cloud platform. The AI generated report not only help to secure drivers, but help effectively reduce fuel cost via statistics.
ITRI demonstrated a 5G-enabled iRoadSafe that is a Transit Signal Priority (TSP) and collision avoidance system for emergency vehicles such as fire trucks, ambulances. It’s Taiwan’s first 5G C-V2X safety system solution deployed in southern Taiwan. When detecting the emergency vehicles passing through the intersection, the system can change or extend the signal phase to provide the emergency vehicles the first priority to pass through it.
Smart City is an important driving factor for EVs. HwaCom Systems introduces 5G EMC technology into the smart transportation system to reduce the heavy load of the urban traffic management center via the cloud. With the capability of computing and analyzing massive video data at the edge of a cellular network, the technology can effectively reduce the latency during the data transmission and enable real-time traffic management in response to the local needs.
The company joined the Intelligent Transportation Open Test Field project in northern Taiwan, building a 5G and C-V2X environment with roadside equipment, sensors, traffic controllers as well as an edge computing system to build the Vehicle-Infrastructure-Person Network (VIP-Network). The dynamic and static traffic information can be visually represented on the 3D dashboard via 3D Digital Twin technology. MOTC and HwaCom also developed an open standard interface for the exchange of data between a traffic controller and a roadside unit transmitting using the SAE J2735 standard.
HwaCom Systems also has a IoV solution supporting C-V2X technology and following SAT J2735, to improve traffic safety and management efficiency for freeways. The solution helps the operators to collect the freeway information like probe vehicle data, PVD through the probe vehicles and gather data collected by AI-enabled CCTV, ETC, vehicle detectors (VD) or other detectors. Via the data analysis on the cloud, automatic traffic congestion and incident detection can be achieved as well as Traveler Information Message (TIM) and Roadside Alert (RSA) message could be broadcasted through RSU to the connected vehicles.
We can see there is an increasing trend to combine the ADAS and DMS technologies to maximize safety, and utilize more AI technologies to further enable autonomous driving.
