Connected Car: Seat Sensors Monitor Riders for Safer Travel

In the consumer connected car space, more is definitely what’s needed. More testing, more safety, more data and more use cases. All of that will be required to prove the concept to governmental regulators that are terrified of rolling armies of computer-driven vehicles, just waiting for the right moment to strike.

Many companies are starting to pop up with solutions to getting some of that “more” that we need, and one of the newest is BeBop sensors, which has manufactured a smart fabric sensor technology loaded with what it’s calling the Automotive Occupant Classification System (OCS). This OCS features embedded car seat sensors that continuously take full seat pressure images in real-time to detect pressure information and movement from the entire seat, collecting data points for all aspects of physical contact between the occupant and the seat, including leaning forward or back, left or right, crossing legs, occupant size and weight, and detecting the rigid bottom of a child car seat. 

Most current systems are used only for making sure that airbags are active when needed, based entirely on weight. Anyone who has placed a bag of groceries on the front seat and then had to buckle it up to stop that infernal beeping knows how stupid and annoying the current technology is. In fact, there Nissan had a recent recall of 3.5 million vehicle airbag systems predicated on just this issue.

“That technology is now obsolete,” said Keith McMillen, Founder & CEO, BeBop. “You can tell more about a person through a picture than a scale.”

BeBop’s high-resolution OCS sensing system is designed to distinguish subtle details and changes to an occupant’s position and movements in real time, are lightweight, have no moving parts are waterproof and are automotive grade. They can also be customized for any seat in the front or back row.

Take that, K.I.T.T.