Researchers have shrunk traditional optical-technology to create optical surfaces expected to advance the distracted-driver systems likely to one day be in every car on the road.

The ANU recently rolled out the first prototype through its collaboration with Seeing Machines, a Canberra company breaking ground in the field of AI driver technology.

Professor Dragomir Neshev said better understanding of the science behind how light interacts with nano structures, which are around a thousand times smaller than a human hair, has allowed researchers to design optical system that are also highly miniaturised.

Paper-thin optic systems could be incorporated into a car's dashboard in the future, sending an alert to drivers whose eyes wander, the Research School of Physics director said.

While current driver distraction technology can be manipulated or thrown off by a set of sunglasses, the new systems can see beyond the lens and the trickery.

Professor Neshev said Europe had already legislated that all cars needed to have such a system by 2025, with Australia likely not too many years behind.

"We will have a lot of elements from our technology under the hood of every vehicle," he said.

Professor Neshev said self-driving cars relied on optics that created three-dimensional maps of everything outside the car, to measure distance and speed as the vehicle travelled towards them.

He said the tiny optics systems they'd created could be integrated onto the different sides of the car, similar to a bumper sticker on the back.

"Current systems are usually pretty bulky, expensive and include mechanically moving parts which cannot be easily integrated," Professor Neshev said.

"Our centre is trying to change this by utilising nanotechnology and miniaturising the system."

His team has partnered with companies in both Australia and Luxembourg, to improve self-driving technology being trialled in California and elsewhere around the world.

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Their work has been backed by the Australian Research Council, through the provision of $34.9 million in funding over seven years for the establishment of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems.

The research consortium will see collaboration between 20 national and international institutions, exploring the use of advancing optical technologies for a range of industries.

Professor Neshev said, while it was technologically possible to have self-driving cars on ACT roads tomorrow, there was likely a few years before Australia introduced legislation to make it possible.

"It's a very complex issue the whole of society needs to be involved in because the issues that need addressing go beyond technology: like, who has the liability if an accident happens of some sort?" he said.

Development of miniaturised meta-optics enable us to see the invisible, Professor Neshev said.

Doctors could receive real-time images inside patients at a cellular level and mobile phone screens could create holographic image.

"The lens-based optics that are used in modern-day devices are based on concepts of light that are 3000 years old," Professor Neshev said.

"What we're developing are optical surfaces that replace big lenses. That's a game changer for almost every industry."

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