After Big AI Investment, Hyundai Mobis Announces Biometric Driver Assessment System

“In addition to helping to ensure safe driving, the DSW system is also capable of performing driver identification, and could be used to trigger personalization of in-car settings.”

Just a few months after its investment in computer vision specialist Deep Glint, automotive components supplier Hyundai Mobis has announced a new Driver State Warning (DSW) system designed to use eye tracking and face biometrics to determine when the driver is paying dangerously little attention to the road, triggering alerts that can help to refocus the driver and protect everyone in the car.

In a statement announcing the system, Hyundai Mobis didn’t hesitate to toot its own horn. The company said existing driver state warning systems “could only recognize the direction of the driver’s face and the opened or closed state of their eyes,” while its own solution “is the most advanced-in-class product that offers a new level of careless driving detection accuracy through driver identification based on facial feature points such as eyes, nose, mouth and ears as well as eye tracking through pupil recognition.”

In addition to helping to ensure safe driving, the DSW system is also capable of performing driver identification, and could be used to trigger personalization of in-car settings.

Hyundai Mobis’s statement did not mention Deep Glint, but the technology used in the DSW system strongly suggests that the China-based AI specialist was involved in the project. Deep Glint is focused on computer vision technology capable of facial, body, and even behavioral recognition, and in taking its $5 million stake in the company earlier this year, Hyundai Mobis indicated that it aimed to leverage Deep Glint’s facial recognition technology in in-car solutions.

Hyundai Mobis says it expects to supply its DSW system to “main mid/full sized commercial vehicles” in Korea starting in 2021.