RE: News9 Dec 2021 09:03
CENKOS NOTE TODAY:
EU-NCAP specifications - good news
Euro-NCAP have now finally released the technical paper covering the expectations and scoring for automotive Driver Monitoring Systems. The technical expectations for DMS are relatively sophisticated with DMS systems needing to measure not just head position but eye gaze and eye aperture. The expectations cover both a wide range of driver types that must be recognised (gender, age, ethnicity) but also levels of occlusion (ie availability) in real world applications. Specifically, the paper highlights that system performance must not be degraded in certain conditions which include sunglasses and facial hair. Further to this the system performance must either not be degraded (or warn the driver of degraded performance) under more advanced conditions: Facial occlusion, face-mask, hats, long head hair fringe obscuring eyes - eyewear sunglasses with a <15% transmittance, Eyelash makeup Thick eyelash makeup, facial hair, long facial hair (>150mm in length. Technical specifications are also well defined for Downness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale 7) which must be detected as well as a micro-sleep of 1-2 seconds. ?
CENKOS COMMENT: We see this technical specification as good news for Seeing Machines and Smart Eye who are probably the only suppliers that can meet the advanced occlusion targets. Whilst the advanced occlusion targets are not mandatory, we fail to see why any sensible OEM would risk selling a car that warn you every 10 seconds the system is not working if, for example, you are wearing a face mask. It also now looks clear that Tesla will have to source Seeing Machines or Smart Eye relatively promptly or face a poor Euro-NCAP safety rating. We also see a potential for these standards to be copied by European Commission as a mandated safety specifications, although the expectation is for this to be watered down with the EC likely focussing more on basic occlusion and not advanced occlusion. These standards may also help accelerate activity in other markets such as Japan, where the recognition of Eye by Japanese OEMs has been slow, but the Japanese New Car Assessment Programme (JNCAP) rarely deviates from EU standards. We maintain our 19.5p valuation and Buy recommendation.
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