How many lives will your vision system save?

If you’re working on machine vision in the pharma, medical device, or food industries the answer may be “quite a lot”, but I doubt many of us will have the impact of the vision folks at auto parts supplier Continental.

I told you last month that Conti have something like 1,300 people working on automated driving, (“The biggest competitor you never heard of”). Well here’s a good example of what they’re up to: “In-vehicle lighting key to Continental 'driver focus' concept” (SAE, February 26^th, 2013,) describes how IR lighting and a steering column-mounted camera plus facial recognition software will identify when a driver is paying less than full attention to the road.

Having once had the misfortune off arriving at the scene of a fatal distracted-driver accident, I believe this is very important work. I look forward to the day when it becomes standard in every car and truck.