Affectiva and Nuance to offer assistance

US company Affectiva plans to develop a joint automotive assistant which detects driver distraction and drowsiness and voices recommendations such as navigating to a coffee shop. The solution is intended to align its dialogue to a motorist’s emotional state based on facial and verbal expressions. The integrated solution will combine the Affectiva Automotive AI solution with UK-based Nuance Communications’ Dragon Drive platform. Affectiva Automotive AI measures facial expressions and emotions such as ange
December 6, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
US company Affectiva plans to develop a joint automotive assistant which detects driver distraction and drowsiness and voices recommendations such as navigating to a coffee shop. The solution is intended to align its dialogue to a motorist’s emotional state based on facial and verbal expressions.


The integrated solution will combine the Affectiva Automotive AI solution with UK-based Nuance Communications’ Dragon Drive platform.

Affectiva Automotive AI measures facial expressions and emotions such as anger and surprise as well as verbal expressions in real time. It also displays icons which indicate drowsiness such as yawning, eye closure and blink rates and physical or mental distraction.Through the partnership, Dragon Drive will enable the in-car assistant to interact with passengers via emotional and cognitive state detection. It currently facilitates this correspondence through gesture, touch, gaze detection and voice recognition powered by natural language understanding.

Stefan Ortmanns, executive vice president and general manager, Nuance Automotive, says these additional modes of interaction will help its OEM partners develop automotive assistants which can ensure the safety and efficiency of connected and autonomous cars.

In the future, the automotive assistant may also be able to take control of semi-autonomous vehicles if the driver displays signs of physical or mental distraction.

Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision

Related Content

  • Qualcomm expands investment in automotive technology
    January 7, 2016
    Qualcomm subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, has expanded its automotive technology portfolio to provide a collection of industry-leading technologies enabling timely innovation across all tiers of the automotive industry through highly integrated solutions in the areas of telematics and connectivity, as well as high definition graphics and multimedia for rich infotainment systems, machine intelligence and sensor fusion for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), GNSS location technologies, V2X (vehicle t
    Read More
  • Connectivity is 'pivotal' for Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon system
    March 16, 2023
    5G platform offers low latency and integrated C-V2X technology to support safety
    Read More
  • Vision technology: the future in focus
    November 23, 2018
    Just a few years ago, terms such as ‘embedded’ and ‘polarisation’ were buzzwords. But now they are real and present examples of vision technology in action – and, Adam Hill finds, the ITS industry is waking up to a number of possible applications Every aspect of the intelligent transportation systems industry moves quickly – but developments in camera technology change with a rapidity which can appear quite bewildering. And with ITS providers constantly searching for an edge against fierce competitio
    Read More
  • New York’s Transit Tech Lab launched for 2025
    January 17, 2025
    Annual competition aims to improve public transit in city’s metropolitan area
    Read More

Highlighted Content