This AI-based sensor will help save children and pets left inside vehicles, scientists say

Stories of children left inside vehicles can be the stuff of nightmares.

In June, a 4½-year-old kindergarten pupil in the southern Chinese island of Hainan died of heatstroke after he was left trapped inside a school bus. That followed another tragedy in April, when a four-year-old girl in the central Chinese province of Hunan died after being left alone by her forgetful father in a locked car for nine hours on a hot day.

It is a worldwide problem that George Shaker, an engineering professor from the University of Waterloo in Canada, and his team of students aim to help solve with the development of a new sensor, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and radar signals, that triggers an alarm when children or pets are left alone in vehicles.

They hope the device will eventually be adopted as standard equipment in all vehicles, Shaker said in a recent phone and email interview.

Recent data suggests there is an urgency to get such technology into cars. Between 2013 and July 2018, there were at least 147 cases in China of children left trapped in vehicles, which resulted in about 40 deaths, according to a recent study by The Beijing News. China is the world’s largest vehicle market.

In the United States, 849 children have died because of so-called paediatric vehicular heatstroke since 1998, according to the latest data from the Noheatstroke.org website.

Shaker, 39, and a team of seven students at the University of Waterloo, an institution recognised worldwide for its innovative AI research programmes, started work on the sensor in January this year.

The device sends out radar signals that are reflected back by people, animals and objects in the vehicle. Built-in AI then analyses the reflected signals.

Why people forget children in hot cars: complex brain memory systems sometimes fail, new study finds

When the sensor detects a child or pet has been left behind, it prevents vehicle doors from locking and sounds an alarm to alert the driver, passengers and other people in the area that there is a problem.

At just three centimetres in diameter, the sensor is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, and is designed to be attached to a vehicle’s rear-view mirror or mounted on the ceiling. The low-power device, which runs on a vehicle’s battery, distinguishes between living beings and inanimate objects by detecting subtle breathing movements.

Shaker indicated that car owners tend to put a lot of items, such as a backpack, bicycle or stroller, in the back seat of their vehicles, which could keep a small child out of sight.

“Unlike cameras, this device preserves privacy,” he said. “It also doesn’t have any blind spots because radar can penetrate seats, for instance, to determine if there is an infant in a rear-facing car seat.”

A number of major car makers have already announced initiatives, without use of AI, to alert vehicle owners about back seat occupants. Hyundai Motor America said in July that it will make a sensor-based rear occupant alert system standard equipment on most of its new models by 2022.

Nissan Motor Co last year started a programme to make a rear door alert system standard on its vehicles. This feature uses the car’s horn, in addition to door sensors and a message display on the centre instrument panel, to remind drivers to check the back seat after the vehicle is parked.

Wong Kam-fai, associate dean at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Engineering, indicated that the sensor designed by Shaker and his team does not need highly advanced AI algorithms to analyse radar signals. “A more precise and complex algorithm will be required to analyse CCTV footage or photos,” Wong said.

Development of the wireless, disc-shaped sensor was funded in part by a major Japanese automotive parts manufacturer, which plans to bring the device to market by the end of 2020. Shaker declined to identify the partner, but said the aim was to make the device commercially available at less than US$50. “We have received requests to put the sensor into older cars,” he said.