Harman Acquires In-Cabin Radar Sensing Pioneer Caaresys

Harman International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, announced the acquisition of Caaresys, an Israel-based company founded in 2017 that develops vehicle passenger monitoring systems powered by contactless, low-emission radar. Caaresys has successfully partnered with leading OEMs and provides a mass production solution for cabin monitoring including vital signs sensing, passenger localization and Child Presence Detection (CPD).

CEVA introduced its 2nd generation SensPro DSP family, a hub for AI and DSP processing workloads associated with a wide range of sensors including camera, Radar, LiDAR, Time-of-Flight, microphones and inertial measurement units (IMUs). The new, lower power, SensPro2 DSPs deliver up to 10X performance improvement versus CEVA-BX2 DSP for AI networks used for voice assistants, natural language processing and spatial audio. They are also automotive-ready with high-precision floating-point capability.

Swedish companies Acconeer, Imagimob and Flexworks decided to join forces in a project to develop gesture-controlled in-ear headphones. Using the profound expertise of the three companies, the project will be a unique combination of research in advanced radar technology, expertise in AI (deep learning) and expertise in designing and manufacturing consumer electronics products. A first working prototype is expected within the first year of the project.

By combining Edge AI software from Imagimob, a company specializing in artificial intelligence development, with Pulsed Coherent Radar technology from Acconeer, the radar sensor specialists, the two Swedish companies have created an innovative platform for gesture control that is perfect for consumer electronics products. Scheduled to be demonstrated at CES 2020 (January 7-10) in Las Vegas, the solution will be implemented for application with wireless headphones, trained to recognize five hand gestures with high accuracy and close to zero latency.