Osram's new infrared LED for gesture control in the car

     Nowadays, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and technologies designed for mobile devices such as facial recognition, eye tracking or gesture control are increasingly finding their way into the automotive space. These technologies are based on infrared light, and the smaller and more powerful the components required, the easier it is to integrate into complex designs. Osram has introduced the Oslon Piccolo Compact Infrared LED (IRER), which is capable of being packed in a small package and has tremendous power, making it ideal for automotive customers.

     Autonomous driving is leading the way, equipping cars with more and more functions and making the interaction between people and cars more intuitive. The interior design of autonomous vehicles will be fundamentally different from current models, with traditional dashboards being replaced by other user interfaces and communication technologies.

     Currently, drivers already use voice assistants to navigate and control simple functions through gesture control technology. Thanks to gesture recognition technology, completely new ways of interacting with displays are being developed. For example, when navigating to a destination, the vehicle displays a map of the corresponding route. At the edges of the image, the different menu items used to operate the display are displayed in a standardized way, which in turn takes up space on the map display. With the help of gesture recognition, menu items are only displayed when the driver moves his or her hand towards the display, so the route can be displayed on the full screen.

     The Oslon Piccolo package is extremely compact, measuring just 1.6mm x 1.6mm and 0.81mm in height, making it easy to fit in a small space for interactive automotive applications. With a DC power of 1.15W at a current of 1A and a very fast switching time of just 10 nanoseconds, the component is suitable for both constant light sources for camera applications, as well as 3D image acquisition functions for modulated or fast pulsed light. The automotive specification (AEC-Q102) components are available in two different wavelengths: 850nm (SFH 4170S A01) and 940nm (SFH 4180S A01).