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Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Requires Secretary of Transportation to Issue Vehicle Safety Standards and Conduct Studies on Vehicle Safety
Reduction of Driver Distraction

The Secretary must conduct research on the installation and use of driver monitoring systems to minimize driver distraction, driver complacency as a result of automation, and foreseeable misuse of advanced driver-assist systems. The motivation behind this provision was likely to ensure that vehicle automation technology does not inadvertently reduce driver and vehicle safety.

If, based on the research, the Secretary determines that additional safety standards are necessary to reduce driver distraction, the Secretary must initiate rulemaking within two years. Otherwise, the Secretary must submit to Congress the reasons for not prescribing additional motor vehicle safety standards.
Drunk and Impaired Driving Prevention Technology

In light of the significant human and economic cost associated with alcohol-impaired driving, the Infrastructure Act requires the Secretary to prescribe a federal safety standard requiring vehicles manufactured after a certain date to be equipped with advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology. Such technology would passively monitor driving performance to identify whether the driver may be impaired and/or detect whether the driver’s blood alcohol concentration is above the legal limit. The provision’s broad language gives the Secretary discretion in developing the standard and provides an extension period should the Secretary fail to promulgate a standard within three years. To allow sufficient time for vehicle manufacturers to comply, the mandatory compliance date will be set for at least two years after the rule is issued.
Rear-Seated Children

The Infrastructure Act requires the Secretary to conduct a study on the potential retrofitting of existing passenger motor vehicles with technologies that may address the problem of children being left in rear-seats after the vehicle has been shut off.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3e6c3322-d0a0-4a3b-95ed-cec5c98a6640

EROAD Chair Graham Stuart says: “We have always been clear, that EROAD chooses to grow through organic growth, strategic partnerships and acquisitions. In H1 FY22, we have successfully delivered across all these fronts. We are positioned for the next phase of growth as we look to build our business in the North American and Australian telematics markets.”
Over the period, contracted units grew by 5% to 132,703 reflecting continued good growth in both New Zealand and Australia. This was partly offset by a fall in units in North America predominantly due the loss of an enterprise customer (1,751 units) which aligned its
technology with that of its acquirer. EROAD also continued to see increased momentum selling add-on hardware or SaaS subscription products with over 296 customers adding a product or service to their existing plan, representing 7,341 Dashcam Clarity, Inspect, Logbook or Bookit subscriptions added.
As anticipated, research and development spend increased from $9.3m to $13.3m, representing 28% of revenue. As EROAD moves ahead with its growth strategies, research and development is focused on opening up our addressable market for Enterprise customers.

Successful delivery of EROAD’s growth strategy

EROAD is in a transitional period, as it moves into the next phase of growth. EROAD has continued to deliver on its growth strategy, with operating cashflow and two capital raises over the last 12 months allowing acceleration of investment for organic growth, the development of strategic partnerships and the undertaking of the transformational acquisition of Coretex.
EROAD entered into a strategic partnership with Philips Connect in June this year which provides customers a single view of all of their assets, including trailers and assets making deployment and management easier. EROAD sold 666 Philips Connect solutions in H1 FY22. EROAD has also entered into a partnership with Seeing Machines, an industry leader in vision-based monitoring technology, that enable machines to see, understand, and assist people.

In July 2021, EROAD entered into a conditional agreement to acquire Coretex. The acquisition is expected to accelerate key growth metrics by two years enabling EROAD to capture significant growth opportunity in North America and Australia (particularly with respect to Coretex’s focus on the Enterprise customer segment, which has been less impacted by COVID-19 challenges). It also accelerates growth by adding new strategic verticals and broadens EROAD’s product offering and customer base.
https://www.nzx.com/announcements/383628

2nd part....

Results have shown that the CTS helped instructors move from anecdotal evidence to factual evidence to evaluate where the trainees were looking, and also helped to understand their decision-making, as Seeing Machines Aviation General Manager Patrick Nolan explained to AeroTime.
“One Qualified Flying Instructor (QFI) watched a scenario playback without eye-tracking and remarked that they may have failed that trainee based on their observed performance. The accuracy was not at the required standard in terms of speed, height, and heading maintenance – all signs of cognitive overload,” Nolan said. “We then showed the instructor the same scenario playback but with the trainees’ gaze tracking overlaid on the instruments.

Nolan continued: “In this specific scenario the QFI was open to an alternative decision because what he could see with this additional information was that the trainees’ performance issues were not related to their cognitive load. The student pilot actually had a very good, structured, and disciplined scan pattern, and was not cognitively overloaded, but simply required some more time in the Hawk simulator getting comfortable from a ‘hands and feet’ coordination perspective.”

He added: “So, instead of failing the trainee, adding a remedial training package, and adding significant cost, the instructor determined that he would give this trainee an extra 10-15 minutes of free flight on his own to get more comfortable flying the aircraft.”

While Jericho’s scope of research was on gaze tracking, Seeing Machines continue to develop features using signals that CTS collects, such as pupil dilation, fixation, and dwell times. Through the company’s Human Factors and Advanced Engineering capability, these signals can then be developed into features that are useful to all aspects of the training process including such as measurements of stress and fatigue, situational awareness and cognitive workload.

A limitation identified during the Jericho engagement was that the capability is constrained by its central, fixed mounting position. While the field of view of the camera is wide and suitable for all aspects of visual and instrument flying, if the camera can no longer track a pilot’s eye(s), during dynamic air combat maneuvers, the system loses gaze tracking, this is a physical human limitation from a single sensor, but was agreed that further investigation of the requirement was required.

“If they're flying tactically and, particularly basic fighter maneuvering, they're spending a lot of time looking up and looking back, but the sensor is sitting right in front of them,” Nolan said. “So, all the system is really seeing then is the back or the side of their head. This is an opportunity to leverage our multi-camera solutions, but only if there is a clear value proposition to support a more complex capability. Additionally, another strong use case is Crew Resource Management in a multi-crew side-by-side ****pit en

During a flight, pilots must process an enormous amount of information and act accordingly. They have to be able to focus their attention on the right ****pit instrument at the right time, while balancing an internal and external scan.

The level of situational awareness required becomes increasingly critical for military flight crews. This includes fighter pilots, who are confronted with dangerous and potentially hostile situational environments providing a complex and somewhat different scenario to their commercial counterparts.

Pilots, both military and commercial, gather up to 90% of the information necessary to their task and performance visually. The acquisition of gaze reflexes during training begins on day one and the observation pattern becomes an important factor for an instructor to monitor.

Traditionally, instructors have experienced difficulty assessing a pilot’s scan from sitting at the back of the simulator. The increased use of Head-Up Displays (HUDs), particularly in military, single-seat fighter aircraft with a representative simulator, amplifies this challenge.

If instructors can better understand pilots’ gaze and scan behavior, then they have a greater capability to interpret and provide guidance to trainee pilots to improve overall training efficacy. Military flight training introduces different elements compared to civilian flight training, such as tactical flying, an accelerated syllabus, typified by a steep learning curve with a high historical attrition rate. A contributing factor to this failure rate during flight training is suboptimal monitoring of instruments and the environment by trainee pilots.

Through its Jericho ‘fifth-generation’ innovation program, the Royal Australian Air Force sought to scientifically measure the effectiveness of eye-tracking-based training in a military operational flight training environment. Australian company Seeing Machines, an industry leader in computer vision and operator monitoring technology, was selected as the solution provider for the Jericho initiative.

The training environment selected for the evaluation was the RAAF’s more advanced Lead-In Fighter Training, conducted on the Hawk 127 jet. Complementing live flying, a significant component of flight training, is conducted in the Air Force’s three CAE-manufactured state-of-the-art Flight Training Devices (FTD), also called Full Mission Simulators.

Seeing Machines installed its Crew Training Systems in two FTDs and, over the course of 18 months and two Introductory Fighter Courses, objectively and subjectively measured the utility of eye-tracking based training aids. An important requirement for training fidelity and certification was that the Crew Training System (CTS) was non-intrusive and non-wearable (totally off-body) and could accurately and reliably track pilots’ gaze in real-time on the Instructor Operator Station. It should also be stored as a video file for later debrief opportunities.

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