Automotive Engineering - October 2021 - 21

UX TECHNOLOGY FEATURE
As Intended
Controlled Content
" Washed out "
Under the sun
As Experienced
" Blurry & colors off "
As an 80 year old
As an 80 year old under the sun
" Blurry & washed out "
Reality is the reference
used by Faurecia
IRYStec engineers and
developers to compare
display-screen fidelity
and visual quality.
Uncontrolled Content
Measured Simulation by Physiologists
The focus of Akhavan's idea is what we, as drivers, see and perceive
from the display screen. We want the content we see, in our
brains, to be as true as possible to the original scene. " That was the
aim: to find methodologies and approaches to help us focus on perception
of the display, rather than what it is in pixels, " she said. The
investor she met in Greece became IRYStec's first investor. She
moved to Canada " in a leap of faith " to complete, at his suggestion, a
6-month internship where she learned about startups and his company's
business model.
The experience ended successfully, with a $500,000 check.
IRYStec was born and Akhavan began assembling her core R&D
team. It now numbers 18, with about one-third of them Ph.Ds in image
processing and computer vision. The other two-thirds are engineers
and developers, excluding the available expertise in Faurecia
Clarion Electronics.
A 'unique approach'
Initially, the startup's main focus was the consumer electronics sector -
the dominant market for UX technologies. But the team soon found that
it was far more complex to enter than they'd reckoned. China dominates,
and for a small software company based in Montreal, " that became a
beast we had to deal with, " she said. " But while we were struggling there,
automotive came to us. "
Akhavan knew a researcher at Daimler-Benz, whose own Ph.D thesis
was similar to hers. " He completely understood what we were
trying to achieve; he told his bosses that he'd found a working prototype
of what they'd been attempting to try themselves. " As IRYStec
gained attention among automakers, more investors started to appear.
The reason: safety. " Safety as it relates to the visibility and quality
of the in-vehicle screen, in all dynamic lighting conditions, to every
driver's age and eye, and on every type of hardware - LCD, HDR,
OLED, Quantum dot -is all-important, " she said. " It's a very wellknown
problem that we had a unique approach that nobody else
had. That resonated. "
Blending physiology and perception is the essence of Faurecia
IRYStec's product, Akhavan said. " Knowing exactly what happens
when we're in a dark environment versus a sunny environment and
how our eyes' behavior changes, we can compensate for that with
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
the screen. It doesn't matter if the pixels aren't moving
[in example she shows]; what matters is all the viewers
will see it as moving. Artists were playing with
these visual tricks for ages and physiologists know
about why it happens. "
The power of the company's unique software is rooted
in the basic RGB - red, blue, green - spectrum that is
core to the image-processing and computer-vision
worlds. " Our 'secret sauce' is how much to play with
each value, and to which direction. We don't go 'brute
force' and we don't do trial-and-error. We use specific
scientific approaches and data that says, when you're in
a sunny environment this is the amount of sharpness or
contrast you lose. So, we add exactly X on the content
side by playing with the RGB values.
" Basically, every frame that wants to go on the
screen we intercept, we change the RGBs with our
magic physiological 'sauce,' knowing how much in every
lighting condition we need to change it, " Akhavan
explained. " That knowledge comes from the ambientlight
sensor which exists in all vehicles. Based on that,
we know how much visibility is being lost. So, we compensate
for it by changing everything on the fly before
it's shown on the screen. "
October 2021 21
Company
founder Tara
Akhavan: " We
had a unique
approach that
nobody else
had. "
FAURECIA
Automotive Engineering - October 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive Engineering - October 2021
