Seeing Machines, ANU win ARC Linkage grant

Canberra-based Seeing Machines and the Australian National University have been jointly awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant to enhance in-vehicle situation awareness using visual and audio sensors.

The four-year project will support three ANU PhD students and one research fellow to use advanced artificial intelligence methods to infer and predict dangerous driver and passenger behaviour.

The project brings together Professor Stephen Gould and Dr Liang Zheng from ANU with Seeing Machines’ Dr Akshay Asthana, Professor Mike Lenné and company co-founder Dr Sebastien Rougeaux.

It will seek to develop driving features designed to detect when humans become drowsy or distracted and use autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicle technology to mitigate the risks associated with these behaviours.

Since its foundation in 2020, Seeing Machines has grown to become a global industry leader in driver and occupant monitoring system technology, with customers in the automotive, commercial transport and aviation industries.

Lenné said R&D is fundamental to the ongoing innovation of the company’s driver and operator monitoring system technology solution.

“Being at the forefront of driver and occupant technology, and having unrivalled understanding of human behaviour and access to the data behind that, is key to our ongoing success,” he said. “Programs such as this grant help Seeing Machines maintain our leadership position and, most importantly, ensure our customers can deliver leading features in their vehicles and get people home safely.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Olivier Le Moal