LES Detroit Chapter—Start-ups Show Their Stuff at Motor City Live

Live From Detroit: Emerging Mobility, Connectivity, and Autonomous Technologies webinar showcases innovation and a variety of strategies for protecting IP.

At the July 30 webinar five entrepreneurs connected virtually from Israel, California, and Portugal to unveil new technologies designed to make driving safer and smarter. A live audience of 10 gathered at NextEnergy in Detroit, while a virtual audience of 44 listened in. Co-sponsored by AutoHarvest and LES, the event enabled entrepreneurs to pitch their start-ups to potential partners and investors at no cost. Jayson D. Pankin, founder, President, and CEO of AutoHarvest Foundation and John P. Carney, chairman of the LES Automotive and Aerospace committee, moderated. The LES Michigan Chapter of the Automotive and Aerospace subcommittee of the High-Tech Sector, including Vince Ilagan, organized the event.

Decentralized Cybersecurity

Anne Nowlin, COO of ENT Technologies, in San Diego, California, kicked off the webinar. She introduced ENT (Entity Network Translation), a network defense system based on RKI (Relational Key Infrastructure), a decentralized crypto architecture that can increase security exponentially with system scale. ENT wraps identity and access control, cloud and databases, and trusted content distribution into one protocol that can be installed on many kinds of networks and on individual devices. A proven approach in the alpha stage of development, ENT has patents in the U.S. and South Korea and many patents pending, but is currently seeking only U.S. partners. The sales strategy is an annually recurring license for the protocol itself. 

An Incremental Approach

Next up was Stanislav Shalunov, CEO of Clostra, a San Francisco start-up with expertise in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) research and applications in image recognition and computer vision. Convinced that most consumers are not ready for fully autonomous cars, Shalunov has harnessed AI and ML to augment car and driver performance. Clostra uses Deep Neural Networks (or Deep Learning) to train devices, such as low-cost video cameras, to detect and recognize objects such as cars, pedestrians and light poles. The system compensates for driver fatigue, poor vision, and distractibility and replaces expensive LIDAR sensors. Clostra secures its software-based product with copyright and trade secrets, but as Shalunov observed, AI and ML are advancing so fast, patents are not the best option. 

Reducing Human Error

Several times zones away in Tel Aviv, Ido Levy, founder and CEO of SafeMode, pitched his company's new product, Driver Behavior 2.0, which uses AI and big data to create rich driver profiles and reduce traffic accidents by predicting and changing driver behavior. Levy pointed out that most driver monitoring systems now in use produce a lot of data that provide no insights about driver behavior. SafeMode works with major automotive companies in Israel and Europe and will launch U.S. operations soon. Levy sees a bright future for SafeMode while autonomous and human driven cars share the road and when autonomous vehicles dominate. The company's primary focus is commercial fleet and car sharing platforms. The company has a patent pending.

Making Hot Car Issues Obsolete

CaareSys COO and co-founder Konstantin Berezin, also based in Tel Aviv, pitched a contactless vehicle passenger monitoring system designed to save lives, especially of children left in hot cars. CaareSys uses a patented low emission radar technology to provide data about adults, children, infants, and pets in the car. The system also monitors vital signs (heart and respiration rates) of both driver and passengers. It can be installed anywhere in the cockpit, does not require sightlines, and detects only humans and pets. CaareSys aims to be a Tier II or Tier III supplier, licensing its software and hardware packages. Its efforts are supported by the mission of Euro NCAP to eliminate deaths of children left in hot cars. CaareSys is working with major automotive companies and expects the hot car application to be in cars by 2021. 

Helping Drivers Pay Attention

Wrapping up the presentations was Andre Azevedo, co-founder of Healthy Road, in Porto, Portugal. Healthy Road is engineered to prevent accidents involving human error in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Level 3 autonomous vehicles. Healthy Road monitors driver and passenger behavior using computer vision and sensor fusion. The camera faces the driver and monitors focus, heart rate, fatigue, and seven emotional states. The system emits a wake-up alert if the driver shows signs of falling asleep. The start-up's proprietary algorithms are based on data gathered from working drivers. Healthy Road aims to be an OEM and Tier I supplier.

John Carney observed, "Live from Detroit involved start-ups and entrepreneurs demonstrating that technical leadership for autonomous driving is developing at an accelerating pace in the international market. We commend these entrepreneurs and their focus on technical excellence and creating and protecting IP supporting these innovations."

Jayson D. Pankin	John P. Carney	Vince Ilagan