Eyes on the road
Pascal Dorster, left, was recently selected to lead Cognex∈s in-vehicle and 3-D vision systems. David Schatz, right, is the Natick-based firm∈s vice president of corporate development.Natick's Cognex hopes to tap into the growing vehicle sensor market
It takes guts for a CEO to dress up as a giant Mr. Peanut for Halloween. It takes creativity to model a corporate annual report after an issue of Martha Stewart's magazine, "Living." It takes competitive spirit to display a large photo of a company's ultimate Frisbee team alongside other, more traditional, corporate achievements.
But to position a company to take control of what has the potential to become a multi-million dollar worldwide market segment?
That takes vision.
Natick-based Cognex Corp., the worldwide leader in the machine vision, or "robotic vision," industry, encourages its employees, known as "cognoids," to work hard and play hard. Previous efforts were focused primarily on serving the factory automation market, using Cognex machines to scan bar codes, search for product defects and count products on factory assembly lines.
New direction
The recent hiring of a new director of in-vehicle vision sensors, however, signals a new direction for the company. Cognex executives want to "see" their machine vision products used in cars and commercial trucks to enhance safety and add value.
"There's a lot of activity amongst automakers to add more value to their cars outside of adding more horsepower," said Pascal Dorster, Cognex's recently hired senior director of the business unit in charge of in-vehicle and 3-D vision systems. "They're doing that by adding gadgets to make the car more attractive and more fun to drive."
Those gadgets currently include first generation lane departure warning systems, blind-spot detection systems, adaptive cruise control, and self-parking mechanisms found on high-end models from carmakers like Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti and Volvo, Dorster explained.
Most of the systems currently in use depend on radar technology, rather than vision, said David Schatz, vice president of corporate development at Cognex, though he expects that to change.
"Radar today is the preferred way to do things like adaptive cruise control," Schatz said. "But it's expensive. It can't tell what it's looking at or even if it's directly in your lane. Vision is less expensive and can do a lot of things radar can't."
Driving the market
In-vehicle vision also has the potential to be very lucrative. Schatz estimates that by 2010, 10 percent of all cars sold worldwide will have at least one vision-based sensor system. By 2015, he expects the majority will.
There were more than 40 million new cars and trucks sold worldwide last year, and the demand is only going up. Do the math.
Cognex began its foray into in-vehicle vision by acquiring Pittsburgh-based AssistWare in May 2006. AssistWare had practical experience in designing applications for in-vehicle vision, Schatz explained, beginning with a mid-90s effort to build a car that could drive itself down the road without human interference.
"They determined that even if it wasn't feasible to have a vehicle that could totally drive itself, it was useful to have a system to help the vehicle stay in its lane and give warning when the vehicle was veering out of it," Schatz said. "That's where SafeTRAC came from."
SafeTRAC consists of a small matchbook-sized camera mounted on the windshield of a tractor-trailer that is connected to a dashboard-mounted control module. The camera identifies lane markings and the edges of the roadway, and sounds an audible alert to the driver when the truck leaves a lane or the road without application of the brakes or turn signal.
Independent breed
Of particular use to trucking companies, and truckers themselves, is a feature incorporated into SafeTRAC that records the number of instances of lane departures and calculates a "driver drowsiness index," from 0 to 100, based upon those instances. When a driver score dips below 50, the system prompts him to pull off the road and get some rest.
"Truck drivers are an independent breed, but only the minority are suspicious of the technology. Most appreciate the enhanced safety," Schatz said of driver reaction to the SafeTRAC system.
Schatz said the commercial trucking market was a good place to start for Cognex, and will continue to play a strong role in future marketing decisions.
But the roughly one million commercial trucks sold worldwide each year is small potatoes compared to the passenger car market.
Dorster said there are many potential applications of vision technology in passenger cars beyond those currently available. In the not-too-distant future, he envisions cars with sign recognition technology that can automatically notify a driver when speed limits change, for instance.
Selling direct
For now, Dorster explained, Cognex will work to miniaturize its technology and integrate it into a single unit they can sell to top-tier automotive electronics suppliers like Bosch and Delphi.
Market analysts agree that machine vision could emerge as a large market in coming years, particularly in the automotive segment, said Suresh Balaraman, an analyst and researcher for San Francisco-based ThinkEquity Partners LLC, a research and investment management firm with offices in Boston.
"They have tried to expand into several markets where machine vision can solve problems," Balaraman said. "(In-vehicle vision) is one of the fastest growing segments. There's lots of improvement that can be made in how we drive cars, and if anyone can improve that through the use of machine vision, its Cognex."
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