In the latest episode of "On Location with Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli," hosts Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli delve into the intricacies of automotive technology with Sara Sargent and Rob Stead at the upcoming AutoSens and InCabin Europe 2024 conferences in Barcelona.
Guests:
Sara Sargent, AutoSens Automotive Technology Specialist
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasargent17/
Rob Stead, Managing Director and Founder, Sense Media Group
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjstead/
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Hosts:
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber]
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/sean-martin
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society and Technology Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Notes
The episode kicks off with a playful exchange between Sean and Marco, setting the tone for an engaging discussion about the future of automotive tech. Marco points out the rapid advancements in the industry, comparing it to the evolution from the Flintstones' manually-powered car to today's sophisticated autonomous vehicles. Sean highlights the significance of these advancements and the pivotal role conferences like AutoSens and InCabin play in shaping the industry's future.
A Brief History of AutoSens and InCabin
Rob Stead, the managing director and founder of SenseMedia, provides a historical overview of the AutoSens conference. Established in 2015, AutoSens was born out of a need to bring together experts from various sectors of the automotive industry to foster collaboration and innovation. The event has grown exponentially, and in 2016, the first AutoSens conference was held. Today, AutoSens and its sister event, InCabin, attract a diverse audience, including engineers, regulators, and manufacturers.
Key Themes and Discussions
The conversation dives into the core themes of the upcoming conferences. Sara Sargent, an Automotive Technology Specialist at SenseMedia, explains her dual role in ensuring technical integrity and leading the InCabin event. She emphasizes the importance of addressing current safety concerns, such as child presence detection and airbag deployment accuracy. These technologies not only enhance safety but also pave the way for future innovations in autonomous driving.
The Complexity of Autonomous Vehicles
Rob elaborates on the challenges faced by the industry, emphasizing the difficulty of achieving full autonomy (L4) in consumer vehicles. He notes that while L4 technology is feasible, it is costly and likely to be limited to fleet operators rather than individual consumers. The transition to higher levels of automation will be gradual, with most vehicles remaining at Level 2 (L2) for the foreseeable future.
The Importance of Redundancy and Collaboration
Sean questions the need for various sensor modalities in vehicles, to which Rob responds by explaining the concept of redundancy. Multiple sensors, including cameras, radar, and LiDAR, work together to create a comprehensive and reliable system. This redundancy is crucial for ensuring safety and reliability in autonomous driving systems. Additionally, the conversation touches upon the importance of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) technology and its potential to enhance transportation systems.
InCabin: Advancing Interior Sensing
The discussion shifts to the interior sensing technologies covered in the InCabin conference. Sara highlights the significance of these technologies in ensuring passenger safety and comfort. From detecting medical emergencies to preventing drunk driving, interior sensors can play a critical role in enhancing the overall driving experience. However, Sara acknowledges the privacy concerns that come with increased interior monitoring.
Looking Forward to the Conferences
Rob and Sara both express their excitement for the upcoming conferences in Barcelona. They provide a sneak peek into some of the keynotes and technical sessions, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the events. Notably, the conferences will feature discussions on HMI design, simulation validation, and insights from the Chinese automotive market.
Conclusion
As the episode wraps up, Sean and Marco reflect on the importance of conferences like AutoSens and InCabin in driving innovation and ensuring the safety and reliability of future automotive technologies. They encourage listeners to attend the events and stay tuned for more insightful discussions on the evolving landscape of automotive technology.
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Resources
Learn more about AutoSens Europe 2024: https://auto-sens.com/europe/
Learn more about InCabin Europe 2024: https://incabin.com/europe/
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Exploring the Future of Automotive Technology | An AutoSens and InCabin Europe 2024 Conversation with Sara Sargent and Rob Stead | On Location Coverage with Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Sean Martin: Marco.
[00:00:03] Marco Ciappelli: Sean. Vroom vroom.
[00:00:04] Sean Martin: Ah, you beat me to it. It's a rare occasion.
We actually, we use that a lot because we, these are our Chats on the Road episodes. And, uh, that's kind of our, uh, a, a, one of the signatures, I guess. I don't know if we have any real signature, but none more important or relevant.
[00:00:23] Marco Ciappelli: I felt like I had to say it.
[00:00:27] Sean Martin: I had to do that. You made that connection straight out.
[00:00:31] Marco Ciappelli: Absolutely.
[00:00:31] Sean Martin: So look at that. So we're, we're, uh, obviously there's the chats on the road. We're looking at, uh, a couple of conferences. Autosense, an in cabin, uh, in Europe where, of course, I don't know exactly. That's why we have guests to help us understand what's going on.
But it's about the automotive, automotive industry and the technology that's, uh, that is a car these days. I have a computer on wheels and, uh. As we move to autonomous vehicles in all shapes and sizes and forms, uh, that technology only grows in, in scale and in importance. And, uh, so a couple of conferences, it seems, uh, tackling this space to help.
Bring people together and drive things forward in a positive way. So I'm thrilled to have Sarah Sargent and Rob Stead on. Thank you both for joining us. Welcome to the show.
Yay! Pleasure to be here. Yes!
[00:01:24] Sean Martin: This is gonna be fun. Uh, I can see, uh, I can see a journey. Uh, touching on a lot of different topics, uh, before we get into the, the different events and what's going on at each, maybe a few words about your role in this space and, uh, Sarah, we'll start with you.
[00:01:42] Sara Sargent: Sure. Um, so my background is in electrical engineering and working for, uh, companies in different parts of automotive tech. And so my role, um, at Sense Media is that I, I do two things. I'm our Automotive Technology Specialist. So I just sort of keep an eye and make sure that we're, we're publishing things and working with companies that have technical integrity.
And, um, and then the other part of my role is that I lead on our in cabin event, just so you know. Rob will go into the history of how it launched, but when we decided to launch InCabin, I joined the team to be the champion for InCabin.
[00:02:21] Rob Stead: Nice. Rob? Um, yeah, I'm the managing director and founder of SenseMedia.
Uh, so I've been running B2B technical conferences for 20 odd years by now. I spent 10 years with a company in the UK before deciding that I really wanted to focus on a specific market. Um, and one of my frustrations with my old company was we were spread really thin in a lot of different market areas.
Uh, and I felt like the space of automotive imaging was a really strong growth area at the time, but I'd got to know people in that community. And I felt like they deserved an event that was really dedicated to their needs. And so I decided to leave and set up Sense Media. And that's when we launched AutoSense.
And that was back in, uh, 2015. The company was set up and we ran our first, first conference in, in 2016. Um, so yeah, I kind of oversee things. I dip in here and there. Build relationships with, uh, with people in the ecosystem, um, and then have the pleasure of opening and closing the conferences on site as well.
[00:03:32] Marco Ciappelli: Very nice. So let's start with this. I heard about car driving themselves for as long as I know that I can remember cause I grew up with it. You know, with a Flintstone. So the car actually had a little you have to drive it with your feet, but long enough to to see that there has been a very, very big evolution into what happened in the past, let's say, 15 years or so.
So you kind of started already a while back. And I want to start with that. I mean, how is different now from 15 years ago? When you had the idea, uh, Rob, to, to, to tackle this particular area of the automotive.
[00:04:13] Rob Stead: Yeah, it's a good question because I think our, um, company lifetime, the lifetime of these events.
A lot's happened, actually. Um, so we're coming up to 10 years that we've been running, running, running Autosense and in cabin for three years. Um, but back in 2016, uh, there was a huge hype around self driving cars and, you know, maybe not for the first time, but certainly probably the biggest amount of hype that we've seen, um, in history.
We weren't the only conference back then. There were lots and lots of conferences from, from all sorts of organizations. And there were many, uh, marketing promises, many promote, many, many promises made by the automakers and different projects that we'd have, you know, we'd all be riding around in robo taxis by 2021.
Um, you know, and I think the interesting thing for me was that we, we, we built our event through working with the engineers who were, who were developing the actual solutions to these problems and who were designing the new sensors, uh, designing the new processing chips, they're designing the AI works.
And when we talked to them, they were very clear, like, this isn't going to happen by 2021. These are very, very difficult problems to solve. So one of the founding ideas that we had was that we wanted our events to kind of cut through all the hype and not pretend this was going to happen quickly and for our events to be a place for engine for the engineers who are really working on these problems.
To come and meet and help to, to progress things. Um, so even though the hype was there, I think we, we were clear that this, you know, wasn't going to happen so quickly, but then, you know, over the last few years, we've seen, we've seen the typical Gartner hype curve thing happens. So, you know, peak of expectations, the trough of disillusionment, when everybody realizes my word, this is really, really difficult.
Um, you know, most of those promises didn't come true. Uh, but I think that has been, there has been a lot of technical advancements and, and where you'll see those is not necessarily within self driving cars being on every street, but those advancements have helped us to build better ADAS safety systems in cars.
And those, you know, those do bring benefits. They do make the road safer and they do help to, to save lives, um, across the world. And then one of the things that's come out more recently is a real focus on Sensing inside the cabin. And that's kind of where our in cabin conference came from, came from. So, you know, a bit more, a bit more on that in due course, but, but yeah, the bottom line is self driving cars are really, really difficult.
It's the classic, you know, the first 97 percent of the, of the, of the problem is relatively easy to solve, but that last 3%, those edge cases, the unexpected things that can happen on the road. It's really, really tough. And then you layer on top of that, the regulatory approvals, uh, the commercial side, I mean, the cost.
This is incredibly expensive as well. It's really hard, if not impossible, for any individual company to do this by themselves. There are a couple out there, the Waymos and, you know, but not every company has the resources that Google has. So it's really difficult to do, and it requires a lot of collaborations, and the collaborations are incredibly complex.
So yeah, it's a tough ask. That's why things are moving more slowly than the promises made, you know, a few years ago. But I think when we look at it, that there are advances being made on the fundamental technologies all the time, and I think they can still bring benefits for the public and for drivers.
[00:07:54] Sean Martin: So I want to go to Sarah for this kind of a continuation of what you're talking about there, because I think, what's the current state? Because that might, my sense, being a layperson in this, in this space, is that Everything has a sensor now, right? I don't know if there's anything missing a sensor. So now it becomes, now it becomes, we have, we can then generate data from these sensors.
And now what are the use cases, right? And which ones do we invest in? Which one pushes the envelope too far? Which one needs regulations? Um, are companies competing or are they collaborating to pull scenarios together that, that still work? Solve specific problems. So kind of give us an overview of the state of the sensing and maybe, maybe you can transition to some of the in cabin stuff might frighten me a little.
Give us a sense. Is that what you're going for? Give
[00:08:48] Sara Sargent: us a sense. Um, sensational. Um, so the current state of things is. is that it is fairly regional. So things are different in the U S than they are in Europe, than they are in Asia. So that's important to know. And I'm in the U S so I'm, I definitely have a more U S uh, perspective.
Um, I think that We're sort of, so consumers are starting to understand the ADAS systems that are in their vehicles now that have been for a very long time. Um, and consumers are also starting to be aware that increasing levels of automation are, are coming. Um, the most advanced Consumer vehicle, um, that are on the roadways would be an L3 vehicle and what that means is that the driver is allowed to take their eyes off of the roadway and can do other activities in the car.
And that will be with really specific, what we call operational design domains, so really, um, specific conditions. So it would be only on certain types of roadways, only at certain speeds, only under certain weather conditions, that kind of a thing. Um, but those are on the roadway. Is that
[00:10:08] Sean Martin: all sensed? Or is that left to the user to determine?
That
[00:10:12] Sara Sargent: is all sensed. Um, and so this is sort of a hot topic, uh, of, of contention, um, of whether this is okay and safe or not. Because the question is if there is a situation where the driver does need to take over, what should that time be? And I think Generally, that's around 10 seconds that they use it from the time when the system tells the user to take over to the time when the user actually needs to be able to take over.
Um, and so there's a lot of questions about, well, what is the driver doing in that downtime that can be put down and dealt with in 10 seconds? And what types of incidents? Do we have 10 seconds to react to? Um, so that's sort of the, I think the more, more controversial thing with, with respect to consumer vehicles on the road right now.
And I know those are legal only in a few states. I know Nevada is one of them. And then they're also legal for driving in certain parts of Germany. Um, and from there, it's either you're going into the robo taxi world, which are the way most of the world where they are. Fully stacked out with sensors all over the vehicle so that they can perform L4 driving, which means no driver in the driver's seat.
Um, the L4, I think is what people are really excited about. It's also absolutely outrageously expensive. So those will have the best sensing technologies on, on them and much more sensing technology than any consumer vehicle will ever have. On the consumer vehicle side, what's much more common right now is.
Level two vehicles or some people are saying level two plus level two plus plus how many pluses can we put on it? But level two vehicles are probably what most people are used to it will help you know When you're leaving the lane, it might nudge you back into your lane it's much more about interacting with you as the User to make sure that the driving task is happening Um, so it's like
[00:12:22] Rob Stead: an added layer of safety on top of the driver rather than rather than an autopilot kind of function.
There's another thing. I was just a different conference on Monday and Tuesday this week and. Some of the latest stuff coming from the trucking side as well. So there's some interesting stuff going on there. Um, Daimler and Volvo are the two, two kind of leading companies with some of their industry partners.
And of course, the difference there is that these are commercial vehicles. The cost of the vehicles is much, More significant anyway in the first place. So you can afford to add loads of extra sensors on and lots of kind of processing hardware. And it's, it's, you know, not so cost prohibitive as doing that on a, on a consumer vehicle.
Um, but they're really starting to, to, to, to roll these out. Um, and there's a bunch of advantages there, uh, you know, in terms of the amount of time that the vehicles can be operating, uh, ability to respond safely. I mean, there's, there's, I think, Something like 6, 000 deaths in the U. S. caused each year by truck drivers who are either asleep at the wheel or by, by mistakes by drivers.
Um, you know, it's a, it's a tough job and, and it's a, it's a, it's a difficult task for a human to do to be awake and concentrating for such a long time. So having this technology in the trucking space can be really beneficial. Um, but again, that comes with its own special considerations. The autonomy system can't necessarily do that kind of last mile in the city.
You know, it's more about, you know, taking over on the freeway. Um, but yeah, I think trucking, because there's that ability to invest more in the vehicles and there's the commercial incentives for the operators to have trucks that can operate, you know, year round and more safely. Uh, there's some been really, really good advances on the trucking side as well.
[00:14:07] Marco Ciappelli: All right. So this put me a little bit on the question of I look at things from a societal perspective So cars definitely are part of our society and transportation and and all of that I'm connecting with all this different level and then you brought in the the trucking companies and and business And I'm thinking like, do we all need an L4 or for certain use of a car, of a vehicle, a really good L2 will be just fine, right?
So do we need to get all the way out there or nowhere, but, or we can just enjoy all the extra safety that we're getting. Uh, in the car. So that's, that's kind of my question. I
[00:14:57] Rob Stead: don't
[00:14:57] Sara Sargent: think in our lifetime people, uh, this is such a bold claim, but I don't think in our lifetime, um, we'll ever own L4 vehicles.
I think those will always be owned by fleet operators, um, where one company is sort of the responsible entity for all of the technology on the roadway with this sort of model, and then we'll order them. As robo taxis, um, because they'll be too expensive for us to ever own. Um, so then yes, I think L2 is what people are expecting.
And I think there's, probably going to be a lot of, um, pushback. And I think there's, it's too much of a gray area with L3 vehicles yet to be able to predict whether we will have mass adoption of L3 or not. I think we just need to see how regular regulators react and then also how consumers behave. It was the similar thing when Tesla started becoming popular in the US with autopilot back in the 20s.
18, 20, 2019 time, um, consumers started seeing how excellent the technology was performing. And so they, without being allowed to write, breaking the rules, disengage from driving. And that's where sort of in cabin comes in is we now put these cameras in the car to make sure you're focused on driving. Um, but I think that it's too gray of an area to say, For sure, we'll ever jump into L3 is being mass adopted.
I think consumers should plan on having L2s for a long time.
[00:16:45] Sean Martin: So Rob, maybe this is for you because Sarah's talking about in cabin, maybe we'll get a little deeper dive into that here in a second. I don't want to stay big picture because so there's stuff inside the car, presumably looking at the people.
Then there's stuff in the car looking at the car itself, the technology that makes the car go and stop. And then. There's other stuff. There's GPS. There's, I don't know, do we have to do stuff, things to the road, technology wise? Do we have to change the signs and the lighting? Do you look at that bigger picture as well as part of the conferences you put together?
[00:17:24] Rob Stead: Yeah, absolutely, and you're right. I mean, you know, we've been talking for, what, 10 15 minutes? And already we've covered Many of the reasons why this is such a complex, uh, complex conversation. Our modes of transport are very, you know, very varied, uh, to begin with. Um, yes, within the vehicle, we can integrate sensors that can allow the vehicle to drive by itself.
Um, we can enhance that with things like mapping and location, uh, but that requires the infrastructure to be modified, which is additional expense. Um, so it's all about, I think for me, it's all about redundancy. So if we think about the vehicle by itself to start off with in, um, in any kind of advanced safety system, you will have multiple modes of sensors.
So cameras are used primarily, uh, radar has been used for a long time for adaptive cruise control and those kinds of things, um, on the more advanced vehicles, lidars are used at the moment, and then obviously we have ultrasonic sensors. For the parking assist, you know, for those kind of short range things.
The reason why we have those different sensor modalities is because they're all good at different things. Radar is very good at picking up objects and judging distances, but it's not very high resolution. Cameras are very good at seeing detail and seeing in color, but you can't really do distance measurements very well with them.
And they're not good in the dark or in the fog or in the rain. LiDAR kind of sits in this middle ground where it's higher resolution. You can pick up objects. Um, and you can kind of build a fairly good picture and it works through some, some obstacles like fog and things like that. But, um, it's very expensive at the moment.
And there've been a lot of advances in that technology moving from, um, moving to, to solid state technologies, but it's still expensive. And so you only see it integrated on consumer vehicles and some really high end vehicles, and then on these expensive robo taxi models. But the reason for all of that is to build this redundancy.
So if one sensor is not working so well, you have one or two other sensor, you know, sensor clusters that you can rely on. And, you know, for me building in the mapping and all of the infrastructure intelligence, the V2X, Vehicle to Infrastructure technologies can help add extra layers onto that safety, but I don't think that's feasible to have worldwide.
Right? You know, in some, in major cities, then yeah, that can be helpful. There's also other ways that it can help transportation, managing traffic flow and all sorts of things like that beyond safety as well. So I think in cities we will see that, but, you know, outside of the, of, of, of urban areas, then, then, you know, whatever the domain is, then I think we're going to see slightly different solutions.
Um, and so we're still figuring that out along the way, but, but I see that there will be, there will be different, different solutions in different geographies, in different, um, environments. Uh, and then each of those solutions will have a different type of sensor cluster, uh, that is enabling it to do the job it needs to do, uh, in that specific situation.
[00:20:38] Sean Martin: I've been in, been in Nuemo in San Francisco, so clearly they allow an L4. I don't know if they allow an L3 in the city or not.
[00:20:47] Sara Sargent: What did you think of the Waymo?
[00:20:49] Sean Martin: It, uh, it was pretty cool. I have to say. Yeah. And just the, not just the driving itself. I think I saw some of the LIDAR stuff where you could see people crossing the street and little images of cars and things like that.
Wouldn't necessarily even know or think to think about with your own eye, but you can see it on a screen and realize that the car's looking stuff. Um, just the end to end experience of, uh, of course it has to authenticate somebody as well. There's that whole. Added peace that at the end of the ride it had to wait for a safe spot to pull over just like a human would.
So there, there's a lot of intelligence, just beyond what am I seeing? And, and is it safe to move now or not? Mm-Hmm. . So it, it was, it was pretty cool. And it, Jaguar is nice too. , , nice ride. Nice ride. But, um, I, I guess. I want to go to the, to the conference now because I want to understand, describe a little bit, Rob, why you, why you pulled this together.
I want to understand who, who attends, um, or is it the builders of the stuff? Do you get regulators? Do you, do you get, uh, manufacturers of vehicles? Not just the, the technology inside them. Who, who comes? What do they, what do they get out of the whole experience?
[00:22:15] Rob Stead: Absolutely. So, I mean, our, our, our motto is by engineers for engineers.
Um, so that's where we set out from in the beginning, the people stakeholders in the industry that I was in touch with, um, uh, before AutoSense existed, we're all senior engineers, um, you know, working to solve the problems. that were going to go into ADAS, um, uh, into series vehicles in a kind of, you know, five year type of time, time, time frame.
Um, and they felt there was a need for a community to build a community of, of like minded people from up and down the supply chain, uh, and, and to come together, you know, several times a year and online in between to be able to talk about these challenges. Because again, they, they were the ones stuck in the middle between Understanding that we're moving inevitably towards higher levels of autonomy.
The pressures from the businesses to make that happen as quickly as possible, but the pressure from the regulators to make sure it's safe. Um, and again, we're not talking about developing anti lock brakes here or seatbelts. These are incredibly complicated systems involving multiple stakeholders up and down the supply chain.
So only by bringing all of those people together to talk And to collaborate and to be open and, and, and to talk about the science and the technology can, can we really have any hope of achieving that? Um, so that's what we set out to, to do is to, to build a community that we're bringing all those stakeholders together.
So we have, we have engineers from the OEMs, from the tier one companies. Uh, we have a whole range of sensor manufacturers and sensor design companies. We have the people from the compute side. So building the processing chips, uh, writing the software, designing the AI. Uh, we have testing, uh, and simulation and validation services and people involved in that side.
We have regulators come, um, we, we have everybody really, but it's really focused on the engineering side. The way we structure the conferences is that we kind of top and tail, uh, the agenda with a plenary. And the plenary is. Some big picture thinking, looking about what's going on in the supply chain, looking about upcoming end cap regulations, for example.
Things like that, that provide the context, but then we split into multiple technical tracks and we have very technical, uh, presentations and panel discussions talking about how we can advance this technology. Um, in my mind, we kind of sit between, you know, but, but we're a big conference as well. So in Barcelona, in a couple of weeks, we're going to have over a thousand people, uh, we've got the co location, so we've got AutoSense and InCabin co located.
So it's kind of two separate conferences with two separate but very related communities. And then we bring those together on site in Barcelona and everybody that comes can attend the whole thing. They can chop and change between the conference tracks and the exhibition is all in one space together.
But by having two separate communities, we can really focus on the ADAS and the external sensing, which is AutoSense and the internal sensing. Um, uh, not just for safety, but also for comfort and convenience, which is, which is in cabin. Um, but yeah, very much engineers and our whole ethos is coming together.
Take off the boxing gloves. This is not about competing. This is about collaborating. And we found that has really resonated and that's what's, that's what's helped us to grow over the, over the last nine years. Maybe Sarah can tell you a bit more about in cabin, which, which, which spun out of AutoSense in the last few years.
[00:25:50] Marco Ciappelli: Let's do that. But I want to, I want to introduce this part because I think from a user perspective, um, when you think about the, the outside of the car, the safety, the driving, you know, there is like, cool, it's, it's just driving itself. It's making me safe. Then I'm thinking like there is a bunch of camera looking at me.
I think there was already some Mozilla research telling how it could bring some uncomfortable situation of what's going on in the car, talk about privacy, talk about gender, talking about whatever is going to go in the car. It's kind of like your car, it's, it's your space, at least, you know, until we just rent a car when we need it or the way most show up.
So the perspective, I think, from a user point of view to have. The inside in cabin, it's a different story. So why do we need in cabin sensors? And I think that's a good way to start talk about this.
[00:27:01] Sara Sargent: Super great way to start. So the I'll say for me, the big thing was when the regulations for child presence detection came through.
And in the US, um, the past two years, past few years data, uh, 40 children die every year in the U S from being left in a car, um, which is absurd and totally avoidable. Um, and, uh, regulators think so too. So they said, Hey, guess what? If you're an auto maker, you have to be able to detect whether a child has been left alone in a vehicle.
And that's from my perspective, what has kicked off The huge, then, now very busy industry of interior sensing, um, very much about safety. Some of the other, uh, safety, uh, Aspects of interior sensing are also things like your safe airbag deployment. So it can look at where you're physic, where you physically are in the vehicle, and it can adjust the timing of the airbag deployment or even which airbags deploy based on your body pose, they call it.
Um, and there are other much more intricate complex systems that are looking at your, your facial and body, um, your facial expression and body pose that can give you sort of medical emergency information. So Sarah is having a stroke and if I'm having a stroke behind the wheel, and we know that, We could potentially have the car pull over safely to the side of the road and alert emergency services.
Taking that a step further, there are certain different biomedical signals that can be picked up as one thing or another. Um, and so for instance, if the car senses I'm having this biomedical signal, it might diagnose it as one thing. When the emergency services get there, if they think I've been diagnosed as having a stroke or whatever it might be, they can then give me an injection that would save me.
But if it's misdiagnosed me, they could give me an injection to save me that would then cause harm. And so if our car knows all of these biomedical. Um, habits or sort of has this biomedical data that it's collected about us because we're in it every day for an hour a day where we're not in our doctor's office or in front of our doctor for an hour a day, every day.
It knows what's normal for us that nobody else knows. Um, and so that's another avenue that companies are really interested in as, uh, it's like a, like a personal, you know, Like doctor almost, um, that's taking it too far, but it's going to be picking up on medical habits and noticing changes, biomedical changes that could be used to help you or go to your doc, tell you you are showing signs of Parkinson's, go to your doctor and get diagnosed.
Um, so those, there's kind of a broad array and it's sort of minimal little steps that can happen now, all the way up to like, Crazy ideas of what could happen in the future. So those are some. Do you value
[00:30:31] Marco Ciappelli: those theory or okay? I could have a series of 10 podcasts just to talk about what you just said.
Yeah. I mean, it involves privacy, it involves decision, involves democratization, because is it going to be applied in a very expensive high end car so that you have the doctor in the car or can you apply on a, you know, on a cheap car that is more of a, um, of a popular car and, and so on. But, uh, definitely.
Amazing stuff. And then I'm thinking, of course, it's the one that can detect if you're drunk is not going to start the engine. I think that's pretty cool thing, right? I mean, definitely maybe more immediate than, uh, And there's so much more to it than being your doctor. But who knows? Maybe my computer can be my doctor.
Considering I spend more time in front
of a computer than on my heart.
As well, yeah. So a lot of conversations and any um, any highlight in terms of keynotes or speakers that you're gonna have that you want to. Kind of, um, highlight your favorite child.
[00:31:36] Rob Stead: That's what he's asking.
[00:31:37] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, pretty much.
[00:31:40] Rob Stead: Yeah. So, so, I mean, for me, um, one thing I was just going to add to the last piece of the conversation is, is that.
The people developing the technology take all of these issues around privacy and security really, really seriously. So it's always, it's always top of the agenda. And, you know, the solution to those problems are technical solutions. So how can you anonymize the data? How can you extract the useful information whilst making sure that everybody's privacy is protected?
That is a technical problem. It's a technical problem at the end of the day, uh, and you have to advance the technology to be able to do that. So it's always a, it's always a common theme in our, in our events as well. Um, for me, um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm really looking forward to a couple of things, uh, in a couple of keynotes.
So, um, we, Uh, have our, uh, first Chinese conference coming up in November this year, uh, which is very exciting. We'd originally planned that for 2020, uh, in November, 2020, and we'll know what happens to your conferences during that time. So, uh, we're really, really happy to be revisiting that. And yeah. One of our keynotes in, um, in Barcelona in a couple of weeks is actually from China.
So he's the head of the Volkswagen, um, technical research center, uh, near Shanghai. And he's going to be talking about what's going on in the market in China, which is very interesting and quite different to what's going on in China. Uh, throughout Europe and, and the States. Um, so delighted to, to, to have him along.
And a good friend of mine, uh, Professor Albert Teweson. Uh, he, uh, recently retired, but he was a professor at, uh, Technical University of Delft. Um, in the Netherlands for, for quite a few years, and he does a lot of training courses. Um, he's been doing some testing with, uh, an unidentified sensor from the automotive space and has uncovered some performance, uh, limitations and challenges, uh, with that, which he's gonna share with the, with the whole group.
So you can see we've kind of got. Some different levels of conversation going on there throughout the conference, whether that's looking at what's going on in a different market from the vehicle level, right down to the sensor design and performance. Um, so yeah, those are the bits I'm looking forward to.
How about you, Sarah?
[00:34:00] Sara Sargent: Um, I'm very excited for, we have tutorials, so we have technical tutorials on our events, which are sort of Two to three hour long workshop sessions. And this year for in cabin, we have, uh, someone who's from an OEM, uh, background in their past that is going to be doing a session on HMI design.
Um, and obviously how we interact, uh, with our cockpit is. Becoming more and more important, the more features that we're adding in. So I think that's something that's really important for engineers who are designing the systems, not just the cockpits themselves, but the systems that are part of the cockpits.
I think it's really important for those engineers to have the HMI design in mind as well when they're designing the technology that's in there. So, I'm very excited for that session. And then we have, um, another session that's on the stage, a presentation, um, with, with a company called any verse and, uh, who's a simulation company.
And they're presenting alongside Google on something that they've been working on, sort of about how we get to the right confidence level with the. Um, simulations that we're using for validating the technology. So those would be my two, my two favorites. Nice one. Cool. Nice one.
[00:35:26] Sean Martin: Well, the conference is side by side, uh, eight through 10th of October in Barcelona and, uh, Yeah, I mean, so, so many topics, I mean, obviously we could talk for hours here.
Um, you, you have days of, days of conversations, uh, technical leading up to system, leading up to use cases and, and why we loved it and why I was glad to have you both on, on the show and to have this chat and hopefully we'll do more next year and or throughout the year with you, uh, covering this topic.
[00:36:03] Marco Ciappelli: By more you mean, we're going to go.
[00:36:06] Sean Martin: Exactly.
[00:36:08] Sara Sargent: You should, it's such a good time. And we have the best networking events too.
We have
Oktoberfest this year. It's very cool.
[00:36:19] Sean Martin: Nice one. Um, yeah, so I, I think, yeah, just the, the idea that you bring all this together, um, it's a, A topic that sits squarely at where we care most at ITSP Magazine, which is the Intersection Technology Society and Cyber Security.
Um, so enabling and empowering humans to do cool things, but in a safe way that, uh, That, uh, we were not destroying ourselves in the process. So I'm glad to have you both on and, uh, thrilled to see these events come together and hopefully, like, like we said, we'll get to see you in person. And one of them in the meantime, we invite everybody to go to auto sens.
com and in cabin. com. Check out the European event in Barcelona, 8th through 10th in October. And, uh, Connect with Rob and Sarah and follow them for other stuff going on throughout the year. And of course, stay tuned to ITSB magazine and we, as we continue to chat about this and other, other areas of tech that impact how we live our lives and vice versa.
So thank you both.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
[00:37:30] Marco Ciappelli: Thank you.
[00:37:31] Sean Martin: And Marco, we're gonna have to, I just realized, we're gonna have to change our vroom vroom for, that's not very electric vehicle friendly, that sound.
[00:37:39] Marco Ciappelli: So how, what would that be? I don't know. That's
[00:37:42] Rob Stead: okay, that's okay. It's not exclusively electric, no problem whatsoever.
Vroom is fine.
[00:37:50] Marco Ciappelli: I mentioned, I mentioned the Flintstone at the beginning, so it could be actually human power and that's okay too. Vroom.
[00:37:57] Sean Martin: I can't make that funny cartoon sound with the feet. Yabba dabba doo. Exactly.
[00:38:02] Marco Ciappelli: Yabba yabba doo.
[00:38:04] Sean Martin: Ah, well it's fantastic having you both on, thank you so much, good luck with the conferences and we will see you again soon.
[00:38:12] Rob Stead: Pleasure, nice to meet you both, thanks for inviting us. Yeah, look forward to talking again soon.