They made their name internationally keeping drowsy mining truck drivers safe, now a Canberra tech company is allowing cars to offer hands-free cruise control.
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Seeing Machines' driver fatigue and distraction monitoring system has been extended to allow those behind the wheel to take their hands off it and let the computer do the work.
The Braddon-based company's chief executive Ken Kroeger said it would be the first mass produced semi autonomous vehicle when it was offered to the public next year.
"It will drive at the speed you set it and, if it can safely do so, it will steer around cars in front of you," he said.
"If it needs help it will ask you to put your hands on the touch-sensitive steering wheel."
In-built checks - including real-time tracking of the road conditions, traffic density and lane markings - would decide if the hands-free option was suitable, and flash a light if so. A different coloured light and sounds would come on when human control was needed again.
Mr Kroeger said the futuristic feature would be an option in a "top-range" vehicle for one of the world's largest car manufacturers, with the first fitted cars to be sold in the US and China and other models already being looked at.
Cameras monitor drivers' faces, eyes and eyelids with algorithms programmed to allow detection of a microsleep or distraction.
It's been a boom year for the company which grew from an idea from a robotic laboratory at the Australian National University in the late 1990s. It exported a record 1800 units in 2014-15, up 70 per cent. Revenue has tripled in three years, passing $21 million last year, and the number of workers has also tripled.
About 75 of the 165 workers were now based in the Braddon headquarters, home to research and development -- "nearly everyone here is a PhD," Mr Kroeger said. .
A sale deal with Caterpillar worth an immediate $23 million was signed two weeks ago, handing over the rights for the mining and rugged industry systems, with royalties to continue to flow.
Covering almost every mass-market ground or air transport sector, Mr Kroeger said the company's strategy was now to cater for fleet trucks, passenger vehicles, trains, planes and consumer electronics, partnering with industry leaders including Boeing and Takata.
There are more than 4000 trucks used in the mining industry with the equipment installed in them, spread between Australia, Latin America and North America, and an extra 500 on-road trucks in Australia. While the mining trucks' systems were valued at about $25,000 each, they've proven their value, recording more than 100,000 occasions of a driver drifting off behind the wheel this year.