Omron Automotive the Company Profile
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THE HANSEN REPORT ON AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS. A Business and Technology Newsletter VOL. 19, NO. 7◆◆ PORTSMOUTH, NH USA SEPTEMBER 2006 Strategy Analytics on Driver Distraction Offers Automotive Electronics Trends Huge Safety Opportunity We recently interviewed two of the Volvo and Toyota Lead the Way veloped by Toyota Motor Corporation industry’s most experienced and best in- “Seventy-eight percent of all crashes and Toyota Central Research Corpora- formed market analysts about the state of and 65% of all near crashes involved the tion, the driver monitor is manufactured automotive electronics: Chris Webber, driver looking away from the forward by the Aisin Group, a Toyota affiliate. vice president in charge of Strategy roadway just prior to the onset of the Analytics’ automotive practice, and Ian conflict.” That is one of many important Cognitive Distraction Detection Riches, director of the automotive prac- results of the widely praised 100-Car While it is a huge problem with devas- tice. Founded in 1988, Strategy Analytics Naturalistic Driving Study, which is already tating implications, visual distraction is provides market intelligence and demand influencing safety and human-factors ex- not the only kind of distraction that leads forecasts on electronics modules, semicon- perts around the world. Prior to these re- to accidents. Experts have also come ductors, sensors, control systems, tele- sults, inattention was widely thought to firmly to the conclusion that cognitive matics and infotainment systems. contribute to perhaps 25% of all crashes, distraction—when your attention is di- Our experts noted that while global car although some experts believed the num- verted from the driving task—adds signifi- production is growing at about 3% to 4% ber was higher. Sponsored by the U.S. cantly to the safety problem. per year, automotive electronics and semi- National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis- Dr. Samantha Jamson, senior research conductor revenue totals are expanding at tration and conducted by the Virginia fellow at the Institute for Transport a rate of 8% to 10% annually, with semi- Tech Transportation Institute, the 100- Studies, University of Leeds, which coor- conductor sales growing a few percent Car Study kept track of drivers and their dinated the European Union’s HASTE faster than ECU sales. One key driver of vehicles over 12 to 13 months, recording project on safety and the human machine this growth could be the increasing pen- five channels of video during approxi- interaction, believes that cognitive dis- etration of active safety systems. Strategy mately two million miles of driving. traction is a significant safety problem. Analytics recently completed some exten- Even before the 100-Car Study was “Your eyes are fixated on the road, but Turn to Strategy Analytics, page 3 completed, Toyota was well on its way to you’re thinking about the instructions implementing technology that will help your navigation system is giving you and Percentage of New Vehicles with drivers avoid the sort of crashes caused by you are not attending to peripheral Embedded Navigation visual distraction. In March 2006, Toyota events—such as a car emerging from a by Region Where Sold introduced to the Japanese market on the side road or a pedestrian stepping out.” Lexus GS 450 hybrid a driver monitoring Dr. Trent Victor, a human systems inte- percent 50 system that uses a digital camera mounted gration engineering manager at Volvo 44 on the steering column to keep track of Technology Corp., who has been working the driver’s face. If the driver looks away on driver distraction issues for nearly ten 40 from the road for a few seconds or more, years, cautioned: “We have observed that 32 and if an obstacle is detected ahead, the a person who is concentrated on solving a 30 system alerts the driver with a warning problem on the phone is affected increas- chime and flashing light. As the car gets ingly by tunnel vision. The driver loses closer to the obstacle, the system auto- awareness of oncoming traffic, crossing 18 20 matically begins to brake. Toyota will in- cyclists or red lights, perhaps looking 14 troduce the driver monitoring system, straight ahead without really seeing very 10 9 8 which is part of Toyota’s Advanced Pre- much. This is just as dangerous as looking Collision System (APCS), in Europe this away from the road repeatedly to do some- December on the LS 460. APCS comes to thing else.” 0 the U.S. in late spring 2007, on the 2008 Last year Dr. Victor completed his doc- 2005 2010 Lexus LS 600h L. The system will be toral thesis with Uppsala University, Swe- Japan Europe NAFTA added to new vehicles as they are intro- den. In “Keeping Eye and Mind on the Data: Strategy Analytics duced each year. Based on technology de- Turn to Distraction, page 2 Distraction... Continued from page 1 Road,” he suggests that equipment that most common distraction for drivers is the measures eye movement can be used not Volvo’s second-generation Intelli- use of cell phones, which distract visually only to identify visual distraction, when gent Driver Information System will: and cognitively in equal measure. the driver looks away from the road too ◆ Manage the allocation of I/O re- NHTSA reported, “The number of often, but also to detect cognitive distrac- sources to applications crashes and near-crashes attributable to tion, because when drivers have cognitive ◆ Resolve conflicts between applica- dialing is nearly identical to the number tasks to perform they tend to stare fixedly tions with respect to their interaction with associated with talking or listening.” at the center of the road. the driver The problem with cell phones has According to Dr. Victor’s thesis, “Read- ◆ Resolve conflicts between system reached epidemic proportions. According ing emails and SMS messages, and chang- initiated events and tasks performed by the to NHTSA, at any given daylight mo- ing the zoom level and language setting driver ment in 2005, 10% of all drivers on the on a navigation system are significantly ◆ Resolve conflicts between applica- road in the United States were engaged in different from common in-vehicle tasks, tions and the driving situation phone conversations using either a such as changing radio stations. And ◆ Optimize warnings with respect to the handheld or hands-free phone. That data there was some evidence that dialing a driver’s state of distraction is based on samples of 43,000 vehicles ob- hands-free telephone is more difficult present a paper on October 9, 2006, at the served from 1,200 sites across the U.S. than dialing a handheld telephone.” ITS World Conference in London, which The survey was conducted by the Na- describes the next generation IDIS con- tional Center for Statistics and Analysis. Workload Managers cept, designed “to resolve HMI conflicts Unless the industry can come to grips Many suppliers and most carmakers between different systems or between sys- with the problem of cell phone distrac- around the world are developing workload tems and the current driving situation.” tion, laws prohibiting the use of handheld managers that help limit potential distrac- “It will behave like a person sitting and even hands-free cell phones while tions from the vehicle’s information, en- next to you, someone taking care of the driving will continue to proliferate around tertainment and warning systems, and distraction level for you,” said Mr. the world. from cell phones, MP3 players and other Broström. “The reason we are looking at Other portable devices that drivers portable devices. The state of workload this kind of system is that we see increas- bring into their vehicles such as personal manager development around the world ing functional content in the car, both navigation devices (PNDs), iPods, Black- was neatly summed up in an SAE paper by in-vehicle information systems like navi- berries and Treos also bring substantial Paul Green, research professor at the Uni- gation and traffic as well as things like safety risks. Dr. Wiel Janssen, senior scien- versity of Michigan Transportation Re- MP3 players, which all cause distraction. tist at TNO Human Factors, a market- search Institute, published by the SAE Adding to the workload are advanced continued on following page for Convergence 2004. driver assistance systems like adaptive Since the 2003 model year, the Saab 9- cruise control, forward collision warning THE HANSEN REPORT ON 3 and Saab 9-5 have had dialog managers and lane departure warning.” AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS that control the flow of non-safety-critical Volvo’s interaction manager is designed messages. In the 2007 Saab 9-5 the to accommodate inputs from a variety of © 2006 Paul Hansen Associates, 150 workload manager suppresses dashboard modules that monitor the driver’s atten- Pinehurst Rd., Portsmouth, NH 03801, warnings and intercepts incoming phone tiveness, for example, a camera that tracks USA. Telephone: 603-431-5859. Fax: 603- calls when high driver workload is de- the driver’s eye and head movements, 431-5791. Email: [email protected]. tected, such as during heavy braking. and/or a camera that keeps track of the All rights reserved. Materials may not be Volvo, which started using a workload vehicle’s position within the lane, and/or reproduced in any form without written per- manager as a standard feature in 2003 on a vehicle navigation system that reports if mission. The Hansen Report on Automotive the S40 and V40 vehicles, presently de- the vehicle is approaching a difficult or Electronics is published 10 times a year, ploys the feature standard on S40, V50 dangerous intersection or rotary. monthly; July/August and December/Janu- and S80 models. The Intelligent Driver While Volvo’s existing IDIS system was ary are combined issues.