EU funded thermal vision augmented awareness project to detect long-wave infrared (LWIR) light both for in-cabin passenger monitoring and for the vehicle’s surroundings
Lynred of France and Umicore jointly develop next-generation thermal sensing solution for Pedestrian Autonomous Emergency Braking (PAEB)
Lynred a France-based leading global provider of high-quality infrared (IR) detectors and Umicore a leading circular materials technology company have joined forces to develop a thermal sensing system that improves the capabilities and performance of pedestrian autonomous emergency braking (PAEB) in adverse lighting conditions.
As the timeline for Level 5 AVs gets further and further away, it is critical to find ways to reduce road fatalities urgently.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will need to be able to drive safely day and night and in all weather conditions.
This collaboration aims to extend the vehicle perception capabilities to the thermal infrared spectrum “not only for Level 4 and 5 AVs,” but “it will also improve a lot of PAEB in current Level 2/Level 2+ cars.
Existing technologies have limitations during difficult lighting conditions i.e. night, sun glare, bad weather.
The Level 4 and Level 5 will have to integrate additional sensing technologies to extend their use cases upon these difficult conditions. Thermal has the ability to detect heat from living beings. It will greatly add to the current sensor suite by drastically improving the pedestrian detection in adverse lighting conditions too.
Since the thermal sensor will not be limited by the vehicle’s headlamp range, the detection range will greatly improve providing more time for vehicles to brake, thus covering higher-speed scenarios.
The European Union funded Heliaus (thermal vision augmented awareness) project aims to develop smart thermal perception systems that will detect long-wave infrared (LWIR) light both for in-cabin passenger monitoring and for the vehicle’s surroundings.
Heliaus will drastically improve object classification of the automotive sensor suite in all light conditions, provide redundancy, and extend vehicle autonomy to Level 3 and beyond, in all light conditions, day and night.
By Maryam Khan