AutoSens 2026：法规推动汽车感知架构演进，UWB与单曝光HDR成焦点

BARCELONA, Spain — At AutoSens and InCabin Europe 2026 in Barcelona, more than 1,000 engineers, executives, and semiconductor experts gathered to examine how evolving safety, perception, and computing requirements are influencing automotive sensor design.

OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers are working together, connecting chipmakers with automotive architects. Driving this development is a wave of regulations, especially Europe’s Euro NCAP 2026 protocols, which require carmakers to go beyond conventional parts.

AutoSense 2026 — (Source: EE Times | Pablo Valerio)

Euro NCAP 2026 and in-cabin safety requirements

Euro NCAP’s 2026 safety protocols put greater emphasis on driver and occupant monitoring. Driver state monitoring (DSM) is a key part of the safe driving assessment. The protocols also assess child presence detection and award additional points for systems that can detect impairment and respond when a driver becomes unresponsive.

Camera-based systems can struggle when occupants or objects are obscured, such as a baby under a blanket or sleeping in a footwell. To address these limitations without raising costs, some suppliers are combining cameras with RF sensing technologies such as UWB and mmWave radar.

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At AutoSens Europe 2026, Calterah demonstrated its Dubhe CAL1106AQ SoC, which the company stated is the first implementation of IEEE 802.15.4ab sensing in a FiRa 4.0-certified 2T4R UWB chip. With its Radar Leakage Suppression module, Calterah said the chip can detect tiny movements, such as the chest of a breathing infant, without a separate mmWave radar unit.

Calterah stated that its Bluetooth Low Energy-assisted multi-millisecond system can measure distances over 400 meters, even through parked cars. The company said the UWB upgrade can support child presence detection by updating existing keyless entry hardware with new software, which could make dedicated 60 GHz mmWave interior radars less necessary.

Meanwhile, Infineon Technologies showcased its XENSIV 60 GHz radar evaluation modules, demonstrating full-cabin monitoring and real-time radar point cloud overlays on live video feeds.

Advanced optical vision

Even with new RF technologies that can sense movement through obstacles, optical cameras are still essential for capturing detailed information inside the car.

Optical cameras can identify who is in the car, check where people are looking to see if they are distracted, and read small facial expressions to spot fatigue.

At the show, Omnivision demonstrated its OX05C1S GS HDR sensor, which uses Nyxel near-infrared technology to achieve high-resolution imaging in near-dark conditions. By shrinking its package by 30%, OmniVision said it allows unobtrusive integration into rearview mirrors or vehicle pillars.

In parallel, Tier-1 supplier Aptiv showcased its Advanced Occupancy Classification software, using a single interior camera to differentiate between adults, infants, children, and inanimate objects.

Aptiv said this camera-only method reached 100% accuracy in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 tests, a U.S. regulation, and cut system costs by up to 40% by removing the need for in-seat pressure sensors.

Exterior perception by single-exposure HDR and imaging radar

For outside driver assistance and self-driving features, engineers have to deal with problems such as bright sun glare, dark tunnels, and flickering LED traffic lights.

To address these challenges, Omnivision presented its 3MP TheiaCel image sensor, which offers 140 decibels of single-exposure high dynamic range. Unlike older multi-exposure methods that can cause motion blur at high speeds, the company said this single-exposure approach keeps images clear in bright and dark areas and reduces flicker.

Similarly, SmartSens Technology showed its 8.3MP SC860AT CMOS sensor, which features Lofic HDR 2.0 and is compliant with ISO 26262 ASIL-B and ISO 21434. The sensor was demonstrated with SmartSens subsidiary Flyingchip’s M2 automotive vision-processing SoC, which integrates a neural processing unit and complies with AEC-Q100 Grade 2 automotive standards and ISO 26262 ASIL-B/D functional safety levels.

On the central computing side, Samsung showed its ISOCELL Auto 1H1 and 4AC image sensors alongside a virtual validation partnership with Synopsys and Ansys. Incorporating digital twin models of Samsung sensors into simulation software enables virtual perception validation, shortening product development cycles by up to 12 months, the company said.

Different compute architectures

Discussions about vehicle computing indicated a move away from full centralization toward smarter zonal processing. Automakers used to want all processing in one central computer, but, at AutoSens USA 2026, experts from NXP, Stellantis, and Bosch, pointed out that this causes heat problems and needs too much wiring. Now, the industry is moving to zonal systems, where AI processing happens at the edge, and only key data goes back to the main processor.

Demonstrating this edge-compute trend, STMicroelectronics showcased its STM32N6 microcontroller, featuring an integrated Neural-ART NPU delivering 600 billion operations per second at 3 TOPS per watt. The company showed a demo that included real-time face recognition running directly on the microcontroller.

STMicroelectronics demo (Source: EE Times | Pablo Valerio)

Meanwhile, high-speed data transfer sparked competition between networking standards. Valens Semiconductor showed its VA7000 chipsets supporting MIPI A-PHY, while Omnivision showcased its 3MP camera sensor featuring an integrated Automotive SerDes Alliance Motion Link serializer.

Cybersecurity and post-quantum cryptography

As software-defined vehicles become increasingly connected, regulatory oversight is expanding beyond standard automotive rules to encompass the European Cyber Resilience Act.

The regulation mandates strict cybersecurity baselines, vulnerability patching, and hardware secure-boot mechanisms for digital products in Europe. Separately, the U.S. National Security Agency’s CNSA 2.0 requirements mandate a transition to post-quantum cryptography to defend against future quantum computing attacks.

At AutoSens Europe, Microchip showed its Trust Shield TS1800 and TS50x Platform root of trust controllers, using an Arm Cortex-M4F processor to run lattice-based post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. The hardware anchors trust directly in physical silicon by monitoring flash memory in real time to prevent firmware tampering.