Aimed at setting a new standard for global automakers, BeBop Sensors of Berkeley, Calif., recently unveiled an Automotive Occupant Classification System (OCS) that features embedded car seat sensors with intelligent car occupant sensing technology for safer airbag deployment.
The smart fabric sensor OCS continuously takes full seat pressure images in real time, detecting pressure information and movement from the entire seat for all aspects of physical contact between the occupant and the seat, including leaning forward or back, left or right, crossing legs, detecting the rigid bottom of a child’s booster seat, the occupant’s size and weight, and more.
“In these old weight-based systems, a bag of groceries and a small child look the same, since they rely on a combination of outdated bladders, hoses and pressure sensors to estimate the weight on the seat,” he says.
Armed with only weight information, “very little intelligence is used to determine airbag deployment, resulting in numerous malfunctions. Due to the increasing failure rates in current OCS systems and the resulting recalls, automobile manufacturers are looking for more intelligent and dependable OCS solutions.”
The company’s high-resolution OCS sensing system provides the granular detail required for next-generation classification systems, which need to distinguish subtle details and changes to an occupant’s position and movements in real time. Fabric-based sensors are substantially lighter than any other liquid-based OCS solutions, ensuring minimal weight is added to the seat construction, McMillen notes.
The sensors have no moving parts, further increasing reliability, and they and can be custom designed for any seat in the front or back row.
“BeBop Sensors is working now with OEMs in the automotive industry to develop and deploy custom fabric sensors for OCS/safety applications, autonomous vehicles, comfort enhancement and soft-switch control interfaces,” he reports.
“Anyone trying to determine a person’s position, size and seating attitude using only weight is making a faster horse. That technology is now obsolete. You can tell more about a person through a picture than a scale,” says McMillen, who recently answered a series of questions posed by Aftermarket Business World:
Q: Are there other automotive applications for this technology?
A: As far as “smart” devices go, your car should be one of the smartest. People spend a lot of time in their cars, so a focus for us is finding new and better ways of both allowing people to interact with their cars and how their cars interact with them.
So we get a lot of inquiries from OEMs and tier 1 suppliers to help them figure out how to make the car more comfortable, ergonomic, responsive or stylish (i.e. upgrade or removal of switches and other control interfaces).
More than anything though, they want to figure out how they can make cars that are less deadly to their passengers and the people they share the road with.
Q: What are the potential opportunities presented by your OCS developments?
A: Anything that interacts with an object inside a car; most of the time that means the driver and occupants, but it also means your luggage or groceries. Occupancy sensing for proper airbag deployment is a big problem automakers are still trying to solve and understanding the difference between your six-year-old and your carry-on bag is hard for the seats of today.
Soft switches and gesture interfaces remove some of the “clunkiness” of switches and other hard molded parts while bringing the cost of integrating newer interaction modes down into accessible ranges.
Q: Are there any automakers currently using this?
A: Automobile cycles are long due to the standards and certifications required in getting any new technology into a car.
Most technology in cars on the road today (and especially safety-related tech) has been in development for five years or more followed by more years of certifying compliance to quality and safety requirements.
There are certainly automakers who are using earlier generations of tech that attempts to address the use-cases we’re discussing, but we have engaged with nearly all of them on trying to help build the cars our children will drive. Or better yet, the cars that will drive them.
Q: Are there applications for retrofitting this technology into existing vehicles?
A: For safety mechanisms, this seems less practical due to the heavy regulations involved.
For comfort or ergonomics, many of our applications are designed around the current features of our car interiors, so this is much more conceivable.
Q: Are auto industry suppliers to OEMs using this technology?
A: Tier 1 suppliers are also excellent partners for us, so much of the old and new tech has been on their minds just as much as ours.
Subscribe to Aftermarket Business World and receive articles like this every month….absolutely free. Click here.
