Magna's Driver Monitoring System Can Tell When You're on the Phone

Mentions of driver monitoring systems usually go hand-in-hand with discussions of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Nearly every major automaker has vehicles with these types of systems installed, including Subaru with its EyeSight system, Mercedes' Attention Assist. All are in a constant state of refinement.

These systems watch the driver for signs of drowsiness or general inattention by looking at the eyes and face with infrared cameras. Some also note the position of the steering wheel, which gets constant micro adjustments when a driver is actually paying attention.

Magna International is a Tier 1 supplier to the auto industry. It has its hands in almost everything from software and hardware to electric axles, full vehicle assembly and ClearView, its new driver monitoring system.

The ClearView system is contained in a rearview mirror and uses a camera hidden behind the reflective part, making it invisible to the driver. This is different from the rearview mirror cameras from GM and Nissan that show what's behind the car using a camera at the rear. However, Magna's system can work with this with a camera under the rearview mirror screen.

The company recently held a Tech Day to show off the new system along with several other of its latest innovations.

During a product demonstration on the 1.5-mile road course at the M1 Concourse in Pontiac, Michigan, the Magna engineering team had an SUV equipped with in-car monitors that showed what the system was seeing, including an outline of the driver's eyes and mouth that were overlaid on the picture. Additionally, it featured a line floating in front of the driver's face showing which way he was pointing.

"Why the mouth? Because when you're monitoring a driver for attentiveness, part of that is seeing if they're awake," Ed Frank, vehicle integrator told Newsweek. "And what you can check for is yawning. Yawning is the big one. It also looks for talking and laughing. It's seeing where I'm looking, and it can use that info to alert me that I need to pay more attention."

When the driver looks away, an internal system timer starts counting down until it registers as distracted. The display in the rear seat showed journalists what the camera was seeing, including a timer that went from green to yellow to red after a few seconds. The time limit can be customized per manufacturer.

It also could pinpoint, using clever algorithms, what the driver was looking at, including a cell phone.

The system can also recognize a driver and can be programmed to act differently according to who's in the seat. Frank notes it would work in a high-dollar car at a valet, or with teenagers driving.

Genesis and Subaru currently have facial recognition systems, using the owner's face to either start the car or bring up favorite settings. The Magna system would work the same way for theft. A non-approved driver wouldn't be able to start the vehicle. It can even tell if it's a person sitting in the passenger seat or a backpack.

"We've been leaders in inside mirrors, and we have been a significant player in the camera-based systems, ADAS systems. OEMs source the mirrors and cameras separately, and our idea was how to get a synergy with that. Can we optimize from a product perspective, the ECU and thermal management, and we believe the inside rearview mirror is a great place," Magna CEO Seetarama Kotagiri told Newsweek.

In Subaru and BMW these driver monitoring cameras are placed in the instrument cluster, some are on the steering wheel and on the F-150 Lightning it's in the center console. One of the advantages of the new yoke steering wheel that's offered on Tesla and Lexus models is that it allows the camera a clearer look at the driver.

"The camera is not obvious, and it's positioned to see the occupants too, to see a child left behind or other things in the future. So, we brought this expertise together in the last two years," he said.

The system isn't just for assisted driving vehicles, it can tell when a driver is distracted or sleepy in any car, in addition to if the driver is looking at their phone. As for drunks, Magna is currently working on software that detects pupil dilation under the influence.

In the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Law there was a provision stating that starting in three years, all new cars must have technology to detect and prevent drunk driving. Some will likely use cabin air detectors, but most plan to use cameras like Magna's system, the company shared.

These systems will be coming sooner rather than later as laws requiring them are being adopted in other parts of the world more rapidly than in the U.S.

"There's going to be a regulation coming in Europe that requires every car to have a driver monitoring system, whether they're autonomous or not. It's a safety feature to reduce distracted driving. We know it's coming, there's going to be a big market. How do we get it?" Kotagiri said.

Two small driver monitoring system pilot programs are coming to North America, while Europe is getting a bigger program. Kotagiri expects the United States to follow Europe with the law and that every car will have some form of this soon.

"Distracted driving comes in various forms and has long been an issue, so much that regulators are increasingly mandating technologies to detect drowsiness and inattentive driving behaviors in places like Europe as an added safety measure.

More of these distracted driver systems will continue to pop up, but Magna has set the bar high with its seamless execution of its driver monitor system," Paul Waatti, industry analysis manager at AutoPacific told Newsweek.

"Rather than adding additional components elsewhere in the vehicle, Magna has a smart solution for its driver monitoring system that makes use of something that's already in every car and is in an ideal location to monitor occupants - the rearview mirror," he said.

The kicker here is that driver safety isn't always enough of an incentive. Hence Magna also plans to pitch it as a 5-megapixel camera to shoot selfies with or even make video calls, safely, of course. Tesla and BMW have selfie features like this, as does Chinese carmaker Nio. Honda even had an HR-V Selfie Edition a few years ago.