Seeing Machines launches new variant of 'FOVIO' chip

Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered driver monitoring technology company Seeing Machines launched a variant of its ‘FOVIO’ driver monitoring chip solution on Monday, which it said had been developed to specifically address the European New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) requirements for driver drowsiness and distraction detection, to achieve safety ratings from 2022.

The AIM-traded firm introduced the FOVIO chip solution in 2018, offering its driver monitoring system (DMS) technology on a fully scalable platform, with the ability to leverage the complete range of features on an optimized system-on-chip (SoC).

It said three of its ongoing automotive programmes were currently being delivered via the platform.

The newest variant of the FOVIO Chip solution, optimised for basic Euro NCAP systems with the flexibility to support the most advanced DMS requirements, now represented the “highest performing, smallest and lowest cost” driver monitoring solution on the market, the board claimed.

It said the solution was further enabled through Seeing Machines' ongoing innovations in “highly optimised” embedded neural inference processing for FOVIO-enabled versions of Xilinx Automotive Zynq-7000 SoCs.

“Driver monitoring plays a key role in next-generation NCAP requirements and safe assisted driving,” said the company’s senior vice-president of automotive, Nick DiFiore.

“Seeing Machines has industry-proven automotive DMS technology that provides true safety outcomes.

“While NCAP is always associated with the need for low cost, many in the industry are also realizing that performance and effectiveness cannot be sacrificed to reach the goals of improved driver safety.”

DiFiore said the company’s “experienced and capable” research and engineering teams were demonstrating that “no compromise” low-cost solutions were possible, as it realised more enhanced AI capabilities on even lower cost industry standard devices though its ongoing silicon partnership with Xilinx.

“This is a great outcome as we continue to focus on supporting our customers and partners in the automotive industry with a DMS solution that is sensibly priced, scalable, simple to integrate in relatively short timeframes, and continues to deliver on the Seeing Machines performance promise.”

At 1557 GMT, shares in Seeing Machines were up 2.58% at 5.13p.