3D depth sensors play a pivotal role in automotive cockpit monitoring systems, helping to create innovative automotive smart cockpits, enabling seamless access to new services and improving passive safety. They are critical to meeting regulatory requirements and NCAP safety ratings, as well as realizing the vision of autonomous driving. In view of this, Infineon Technologies AG has cooperated with pmd, which specializes in the field of 3D ToF (time-of-flight) systems, to develop the second-generation REAL3™ image sensor for vehicles, which complies with the ISO26262 standard and has more advanced features. high resolution.
Christian Herzum, Vice President 3D Sensing at Infineon Technologies, said: "Infineon has always been a leader in the field of 3D sensors for mobile consumer devices. With this advantage, we have extended the application scope of 3D sensors to the automotive field. High-resolution image sensor for the automotive industry. This product can perform the same functions in the car as a mobile consumer terminal, while always meeting automotive-grade standards and even improving passive safety. For example, reliable and secure facial recognition, allowing Seamlessly access any service that requires authentication, such as making payments, charging batteries, or accessing private data.”
In addition, this 3D image sensor also enables the in-vehicle camera to meet the various requirements of driver status monitoring, and accurately determine whether the driver has dangerous driving behaviors such as distraction and fatigue. In this way, only one ToF camera is needed to create a driver status monitoring system that can safely perform 3D facial recognition.
Bernd Buxbaum, CEO of Paiander, said: "We have always been committed to improving the robustness of our 3D image sensors based on Paiander's ToF technology, ensuring that they are not affected by external factors such as sunlight and other interfering light sources. As a result, the new image sensor shows excellent performance even under harsh conditions."
Housed in a 9 x 9 mm² plastic BGA (Ball Grid Array) package, the sensor achieves a VGA system resolution of 640 x 480 pixels using a tiny photosensitive area of only 4 mm. Thanks to this, in-vehicle cameras in automotive applications can now be made as small as a smartphone camera. The high resolution of the REAL3 sensor makes it suitable for wide-field camera applications, such as front-seat occupant monitoring systems. Using the resulting 3D body model, the size and weight of the occupant can be accurately estimated, resulting in highly accurate occupant and seat position data, which provides critical information for smart airbag deployment and restraint systems. This single-chip solution is not only small, but also qualified to AEC-Q100 Grade 2, making it the first solution developed to ISO26262 (ASIL-B) standards.
In addition to safety-critical applications, 3D data can also be used for body comfort functions such as gesture control or interior lighting systems that intuitively sense passenger movements and automatically adjust lights. In addition, the image sensor can also be used in a car for environmental perception scenarios like Flash lidar. And in terms of safety, it is also ideal for mobile robots, drones, and other similar autonomous control applications. Because in these application scenarios, reliability and safety are necessary to protect the operator.
Infineon and PeiAndre jointly launch depth sensor technology
The ToF technology used in depth sensors lays the foundation for a wide variety of applications. It provides highly reliable distance information, while also providing a 2D grayscale image of the entire scene in a variety of environments and lighting conditions (night, day, and dramatically changing lighting conditions).
Availability
Infineon is now offering development samples of its new 3D image sensor chip (IRS2877A) to customers. The IRS2877A has been put into mass production; the IRS2877AS, which complies with the ISO26262 standard, will start mass production at the end of 2022.
