We spoke to Adrian (Adi) Capătă who leads Tobii’s interior sensing business segment. Adi is part of the InCabin advisory board and one of our oldest key speakers, bringing a wealth of knowledge and a unique view on the market.
As Senior Vice President of Tobii Autosense, Adi leads an outstanding team of experts in interior sensing. He is focused on many key areas but the most important are the segment and product vision, and strategy to execution.
From DTS AutoSense part of Xperi, to Tobii Autosense:
How was this journey?
This journey was meant to be! We were and still are focused on changing the way we interact with, and experience, the in-cabin space. Our main goal was to hide the technology and empower the user, working with our partners to develop features that work for the user – not against them. Being a part of Tobii unveiled a new dimension of our journey. A strong, solid, and vetted foundation in technologies that enable in-cabin safety. Tobii is the global leader in eye tracking and a pioneer in attention computing. For the last 20 years, the company has actively improved the world with technology that understands human attention and intent. Leveraging this, we can now truly explore the real potential of interior sensing in a perfect balance between safety and experience, or regulation and differentiation.
Regulation efforts are driving the market today:
How is Tobii Autosense aligning with the direction?
Safety is extremely important, and the regulatory efforts led by EuroNCAP are doing the right thing at the right time. There is however a chance that we might be living in a bubble. There might be a clear separator between how the industry perceives safety and how the end user perceives safety. We’re creating technology with the ambition to save lives, but I think it is also important to acknowledge that the very core function and value of this technology is to help drivers drive better. Most drivers however think they are good drivers, and to create technology that can truly help save lives we must create solutions that doesn’t “just” monitor drivers but enhance their driving skills. The result will be better driving and better driving saves lives. At Tobii Autosense we are actively focusing on what is behind a DMS beep, but not from a technological perspective but rather for an end-user perspective. Safety is mandatory, but it will truly be life changing when it becomes a partnership with those that use it.
If there is a risk for the current system to be rejected how can this be mitigated?
I’ve mentioned in the beginning. It sounds very simple but is a complex endeavor. Simplify complexity, hide technology and empower the user. I see this as a three-part problem – deploying the system, its usefulness, and finally differentiation beyond regulation.
Wide field of view single camera systems are the deployment answer. They can be seamlessly integrated in the interior landscape via the rear-view mirror, with minimal impact on the look and feel. Classically deployed systems (instrument cluster, A-pillar) can cover a few more use cases compared with these ones, but I believe the cost is higher than initially imagined. If the end users reach a negative perception critical mass in terms of DMS, it will be hard to return from there. Today driver monitoring systems are separate from the car’s interior standard wise. It is something extra from what we are used to. It draws attention. “What is that?”. Nobody asks this about the wheel or the rear-view mirror.
The system needs to be truly useful. “But it is because it saves lives” you might say. Somehow, I do not think that this is the first thing that the user will consider. This is important to us, but there is a chance that the average driver will not start a drive thinking of the lives they will save. They are yet to see the benefits of driver monitoring systems. If after 10 years of use, the data shows that the number of accidents has decreased substantially it will be a major win. But for who? For us yes, but for the drivers it will be very hard to relate. When a collision mitigation system stops you from bumping into the front car, you see the benefit. When DMS tells you to take a break, you might not look at it as a benefit, because your need to mentally visualize what could happen if you don’t and nobody does this. We have the technology, but we don’t have yet the way to make it relatable.
Differentiation comes when we can deliver more than just safety using the same system. Today is possible to deploy interior sensing with a single camera. A solution that aligns and goes beyond regulation. It runs technologies that previously required multiple cameras. It can enable use-cases for occupants’ safety and convenience that have never been deployed before. It allows for truly unique use cases that can transform the way we interact with the in-cabin space.
What should with expect from Tobii Autosense in the future?
We are focusing on building and deploying a state-of-the-art single camera interior sensing solution. I personally think is more important that we are not doing this by concentrating solely on technological challenges. This is first a human centric solution, that is the first step in our journey from attention to intelligence. We want to empower the in-cabin occupants, and to do that we must first change our mindset from a technology maker to an actual car user, be it the driver or the occupant.
If you are curious on, how do we approach the journey of transforming the in-cabin space, join us in Barcelona at InCabin. We are at stand 100. Come and say “Hi!”.
