Time-of-flight (ToF) technologies are rapidly gaining momentum for interior and exterior sensing automotive applications. We look at how ToF compares to other 2D/3D sensing technologies, to help you make the right choice for your specific use case.
The uniqueness of ToF technology is the capability to combine an ambient light insensitive image and high resolution distance measurement. Today 2D image sensing and radar have been widely adopted by the automotive industry.
For what concerns distance measurement, radar technology can be very powerful and detects very small movements but with limitation in terms of spatial resolution. ToF technology provides a medium resolution image along with distance, which could be considered as a combination of 2D image sensors and radar.
Interior Sensing Use Cases
Examples of safety functions include driver fatigue detection, and occupancy/child seat detection for more precise airbag control. Additional safety functions like hands-on-wheel detection, eye gaze, head pose, body pose and advanced seat-belt application are possible with the same ToF camera.
Comfort functions supported by ToF include hand position interaction (intuitive HMI) to operate the sunroof, airco and radio; personalization through body, head and face monitoring; detection of objects left behind in the vehicle; and parcel classification and recognition. In-car security functions generally focus on anti-spoof face detection for trusted driver identification and on-route payment authorization.In summary, ToF technology is the perfect solution for autonomous driving applications.