OREANDA-NEWS. Seeing Machines, a global leader in the design and development of vision-based Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) to the transport and automotive industries, is pleased to announce the introduction of its first generation FOVIO embedded hardware chip.

Leveraging over 15 years of innovation and industry experience in designing computer-vision specific head and eye tracking technologies, the Company is proud to announce the completion of the first phase of development of its FOVIO Chip; a world first in DMS performance and price optimised hardware platforms that will deliver physiological and psychometric monitoring to passenger cars, commercial transport and ultimately for the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

With the Company's current contracted OEM vehicle deliveries scheduled to launch in 2017 through to 2019, this landmark development allows the Company to begin the next stages of automotive accreditation of the FOVIO Chip in preparation for inclusion in vehicles produced as early as 2018.

Seeing Machines' decision to embed the Company's head and eye behaviour monitoring and interpretation software into an automotive grade chip will reduce substantially the overall cost and time to market of DMS deployment by automotive OEMs and tier one suppliers to a level that facilitates mass-market uptake as the technology is clearly becoming a critical component of the next-generation of automotive autonomy, technology and safety systems that address escalating global risks such as distracted driving.

The flexible processing chip will also become the core of Seeing Machines' next generation Guardian fleet product range and be made available through Seeing Machines to industry partners and third parties for application in commercial and public transport sectors.

Ken Kroeger, CEO of Seeing Machines, commented: "I am delighted to announce the introduction of our FOVIO DMS Chip which, as a World first, further cements Seeing Machines' position as global leader in the Driver Monitoring industry. The FOVIO Chip will reduce greatly the cost of DMS deployment, helping to accelerate not just our growth but mass market uptake of DMS technology in general. This product will become the key offering of our new stand-alone automotive business that is currently being structured and staffed."