Hyundai Motor·Kia unveiled a technology that could dramatically improve driving safety. It is a technology that detects obstacles around a vehicle with an accuracy of up to 10cm.
Hyundai Motor·Kia said on the 29th that it has developed the world's first advanced sensing technology "Vision Pulse" that uses UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) radio waves to accurately determine the position of obstacles around a vehicle in real time and assist driving.
Vehicles equipped with Vision Pulse technology emit UWB signals from a UWB module into the surroundings. If another nearby vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian or other object also has a module that emits UWB signals, the two UWB modules measure the time it takes to exchange signals, determine the exact location of the other party through this, and issue a warning when a collision is predicted.
A separate UWB module can be installed in a vehicle to use Vision Pulse technology, but vehicles equipped with Digital Key 2 already have the module applied, so the technology can be used without installing an additional device.
Because UWB uses gigahertz-band ultra-wideband radio waves, it has less interference with other signals and superior diffraction and penetration performance, allowing it to determine the precise location of objects within a radius of about 100m with an error margin of 10cm even at urban intersections with many obstacles.
UWB can also maintain detection performance of more than 99% at night or in bad weather, and supports fast communication on the order of 1–5 milliseconds (ms, one thousandth of a second), making it useful for real-time safety management.
Currently, many companies are actively developing technologies that prevent accidents through sensor fusion of cameras, radar and lidar, but research on detecting obstacles in invisible blind spots is lacking. Even the blind-spot detection technologies being developed by a few corporations mostly have the disadvantage of installing fixed devices on road structures or relying on relatively slow communication networks and video, which reduces accuracy and slows processing speed.
The Vision Pulse technology unveiled by Hyundai Motor·Kia enables accurate and fast communication by using UWB radio waves, and it is economical because it can use UWB modules already embedded in vehicles. Also, because UWB modules are relatively inexpensive, if Vision Pulse is used it could reduce expensive vehicle sensors such as lidar and radar, greatly lowering cost while implementing driving safety assistance functions that ensure safety. In addition, Hyundai Motor·Kia increased the technology's applicability by developing and applying algorithms that can accurately predict the positions of multiple objects moving at high speed around a vehicle.
Hyundai Motor·Kia expects Vision Pulse technology to be used not only for driver assistance and driving safety assistance but also across various industrial sectors and public domains.
Applied to industrial mobility such as forklifts, Vision Pulse could prevent collisions with workers and greatly reduce industrial accidents, and when people are buried by disasters such as earthquakes it could provide rescuers with the exact location of missing persons.
On the same day Hyundai Motor·Kia also released a YouTube video demonstrating the technical features and applicability of Vision Pulse.
In a video titled "Sight beyond seeing: technology that sees the unseen," Hyundai Motor·Kia showed a pilot application of Vision Pulse on kindergarten children and buses and captured how it protects children's school commute safety.
They showed the idea of producing the UWB module as a guardian character key ring so children could easily carry it on their bags, and by adding a "sleep mood light" function to the key ring they designed it so that children would naturally connect it to power when turning on the night light before bed, allowing it to charge.
A Hyundai Motor·Kia official said, "Vision Pulse is a technology that reflects Hyundai Motor·Kia's philosophy of putting safety first above all else," and said, "Because it is a technology with infinite applicability, it can contribute to 'Progress for Humanity' in more fields beyond industry."
Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor·Kia is implementing a demonstration project to introduce Vision Pulse technology on the production line at the Kia PBV conversion center (Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province) from 2025 to prevent collisions between forklifts and workers.
Hyundai Motor also signed a memorandum of understanding with Busan Port Authority (BPA) in October last year and plans to verify the technology by conducting demonstration projects to prevent collisions between industrial mobility and workers at the Busan port terminal and hinterland sites.
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