Continental showcases Occupant Safety Monitor at SIAT 2019

German-based auto components major Continental which has its tech centre in Bangalore is showcasing an Occupant Safety Monitor (OcSM) at the ongoing SIAT 2019 Expo in Pune. 

The OcSM is an innovative solution, which is still under development, for estimating the pose of the occupants inside the vehicle to dynamically adapt airbag deployment strategies. This is done based on the different seating postures of the vehicle occupants.

Continental has formed a new team called Innovation Management Group (within Passive Safety & Sensorics business unit) in the Bangalore-based technical center which leads the project. The young team of about 7 core engineers in various disciplines are currently working on this solution, which monitors the occupant postures visually (via image processing) and indicates the optimum seating posture using AI algorithms for enhancing safety during an incidence of a crash.

The safety during such a crash can be enhanced via appropriate airbag deployment strategy. For example, if the driver is seated too close to the steering wheel (airbag deployment point), in case of crash the passenger may hit the steering wheel before the airbag is properly deployed. The innovative OcSM solution provides real-time information about occupant pose to the safety control units so that airbag deployment can be optimised. 

Similarly, in case of the real-time passenger posture of leaning backwards on the seat at the time of crash, the OcSM solution can then optimise the airbag deployment accordingly.

The ongoing development of this innovative safety solution will also include use cases such as object detection in the hands of the passengers and others.

Continental's Innovation Management Group is working jointly with Artificial Intelligence & Robotics (AIR) Labs based at Company's tech center in Bangalore. The team at AIR Labs is known for its expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning domains contributing to several global projects within Continental's umbrella.