Seeing Machines Ltd (LON:SEE) won a new contract for its Driver State System (DSS), its driver monitoring equipment suite, from a client in Australia.
Toll Mining Services is part of Asian logistics firm Toll Group and has contracted Seeing Machines to implement its DSS across its road-going mining trucks at the CapCoal German Creek mine in the Bowen Basin, Queensland. This is the first deployment for the Toll Group.
Seeing Machines develops face, eye and facial feature tracking systems for the consumer electronics, scientific and driver safety markets. The DSS has been the main growth driver up until earlier this year, when the deals started rolling in for face API, the group’s face, eye and facial feature tracking system.
The DSS is an active system that non-intrusively directly monitors the driver of a vehicle for distraction and fatigue events and provides a series of interventions aimed at managing these events and averting potential operator caused accidents.
The in-truck system is wirelessly coupled to Seeing Machines DSSi, a real-time data transmission and analysis service that provides timely information to fleet dispatchers who can intervene and manage their drivers and vehicles effectively.
Chief executive Ken Kroeger said: "This contract is important as it represents a transitionary step from mining's off-highway haul trucks to road-going haul vehicles as Seeing Machines sees a huge opportunity in selling the DSS to the broader on highway trucking fleets.
“DSS is quickly earning a reputation for reducing driver distraction and drowsiness events and as result is leading to discussions with most of the global mining players that take mine safety seriously. Coupled with DSSi, we can offer our customers a service that allows them to take full advantage of our fatigue management expertise while providing Seeing Machines with ongoing service based revenues," he added.
In March Seeing Machines signed a deal with a Chinese company developing glasses-free 3D displays, reminding investors that business is not just about the DSS.
The cutting edge Seeing Machines technology is a suite of image-processing modules created specifically for tracking and understanding faces and facial features.
Seeing Machines had been working together with Shenzen-based SuperD for approximately 12 months prior to the March announced during the development of SuperD's new glasses-free 3D display solutions which include Seeing Machines' faceAPI.
In July, the group announced that Toshiba launched a laptop incorporating its faceAPI technology and that it would receive a royalty for each unit sold. Toshiba's new Qosmio F750 is the world's first 3D laptop that requires no special glasses for watching movies or playing games in 3D and is the results of the cooperation with SuperD.