With insights from Lazina Rahman, Don Gunn, John Stih, Daniel Gomez, and Matthew Zajac
New innovations open worlds of opportunity, but this often comes with new challenges to overcome. In the world of in-cabin monitoring, this manifests in many ways, from the technical intricacies of sensors, cameras, and other technologies to the emerging need for cybersecurity and cost-effective solutions.
To innovate with confidence and come up with the next big thing for in-cabin monitoring, we must first explore these hurdles and the creative ways in which suppliers and OEMs are working to overcome them.
Ensuring Camera Sensor Reliability
One of the main challenges is simply to maintain video quality under low and variable lighting conditions. This becomes increasingly relevant as we continue working on solidifying autonomous vehicles and automated systems that need to process high-quality video to operate and navigate safely.
This challenge puts a special focus on cameras and sensors, which must ensure optimal operation under any lighting conditions. Which triggers the following debate:
LiDAR vs Cameras
The LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) vs Camera only is an ongoing debate in the industry. While both approaches have their pros and cons, we have companies like Renesas advocating for the integration of LiDAR with cameras for effective, all-around reliable ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). On the other hand, companies like Tesla are aiming to achieve the same relying solely on video analysis.
If LiDAR is excluded, cameras might require other technologies such as advanced stereo vision systems to guarantee reliability. As the reliance on cameras grows, the need for additional sensors, such as humidity sensors to prevent condensation in camera elements, becomes crucial.
While the debate doesn’t have a clear solution yet, the pressure is set again on the development of camera technology and video processing solutions that meet the growing demands of modern in-cabin monitoring design and, especially, autonomous driving.
Securing connected vehicles
In-cabin monitoring and other smart technologies being increasingly integrated to vehicles opens the door for a new challenge. As vehicles become connected devices, how do we ensure cybersecurity to prevent any potential threats?
Thinking about connected security requires us to take a comprehensive, integral approach to the design. Security must be integrated into EVERY component in the vehicle’s network. Everything from the network interface to the Controller Area Network controllers must count with built-in security functionalities so that, even if one element is compromised, access to critical systems remains secured.
To guarantee this, the automotive industry has taken a important focus on security in the last decade. OEMs now enforce stringent requirements for automotive certified parts, even in minor components.
Automotive electronics design cannot happen without extensive documentation and specialized expertise to manage and guarantee security and functionality.
Other considerations
Further than the main challenges to tackle for effective in-cabin monitoring design, anticipating the following considerations will help towards seamless, efficient implementation:
First, we must consider cost-effectiveness. The cost discrepancy between desired technologies and the actual cost of parts can lead to budgeting conflicts. Customers will often seek, for example, affordable AI-enabled SoCs with Ethernet access and MIPI CSI inputs but find that the available technology with these features is significantly more expensive. The challenge here comes to balancing what you want vs what you need and optimizing costs where possible.
Another consideration comes size and power constraints, the need for IP-rated cameras and reliable camera synchronization. These requirements are key to the development of both in-cabin and external monitoring technologies in vehicles, and tackling early in the design process will save a lot of time and money in the long run.
Advanced in-cabin monitoring starts with proper planning, and to do so, we must consider the potential challenges and how to tackle them. For this reason, our next article summarizes the featured products that were either briefly mentioned during this series or that come up as recommended solutions by our experts in in-cabin monitoring.
But before we dive into it, do you have any transportation projects you’d like to take to the next level?
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