Gentex Israeli deal advances cabin monitoring

Gentex Corp, the Zeeland, Mich., supplier of rearview mirrors and automotive connected-car technologies, has purchased an Israeli company with an advanced interior camera system technology that can detect occupant movements down to a heartbeat.

Guardian Optical Technologies, founded in 2014 in Tel Aviv, has developed an infrared-sensitive high-resolution camera that can detect movements of a driver and passengers, even if they are out of the camera's line of sight.

Gentex plans to incorporate the Guardian camera into a future version of its Full Display rearview mirror, which incorporates a camera that provides a broader view of the rear of the vehicle, Gentex said.

The system uses machine vision, depth perception and micro-vibration detection to monitor the driver, passengers in the cabin and all the objects in the interior. It continually scans the interior, tracking and determining the physical location of occupants. It does that by combining two-dimensional video image recognition with 3D depth mapping and optical motion analysis, according to Gentex.

"With a single sensor module, we can monitor driver alertness, fine-tune airbag deployment, track passenger behavior and even detect a sleeping child in a car seat in the rear of the vehicle," Neil Boehm, Gentex's chief technology officer, told Automotive News.

He said that incorporating the Guardian technology into a future Gentex system will require a redesign of the Full Display mirror, which is used on such vehicles as the Chevrolet Corvette and Cadillac Escalade. The redesigned mirror with Guardian's camera could be on the market in late 2024, Boehm said.

Driver monitoring is a key feature of many automated technologies.

Boehm said Gentex will manufacture the Guardian system at its plants in Zeeland. But it will keep Guardian intact in Tel Aviv and operate it under the Gentex name. The Israeli company's expertise is in artificial intelligence and software, not manufacturing, he said.

"We have nine people there and their primary function is AI and learning algorithms, and they are really good at that," Boehm said. "Our goal is to get this first product moving and then start leveraging that team for some other projects we've been working on."

The Guardian deal is the second acquisition this year for Gentex. In January, it bought a Utah company with a technology that senses air quality and can detect such things as explosives, drugs and toxic chemicals.

Gentex believes the Guardian technology has applications in the aerospace and medical industries, as well as manufacturing. Says Boehm: "We are real excited about the potential to grow it beyond auto, but we have a lot of work to do to get there."