Yandex introduces SignalQ2 Driver Monitoring Camera, Powered by Ambarella’s CVflow® Edge AI Vision SoC

Ambarella, Inc. announced that the new Yandex SignalQ2 LTE-enabled driver monitoring system (DMS) camera is based on the Ambarella CV25 edge AI vision system on chip (SoC). This Yandex DMS camera will be deployed across the Yandex.Taxi fleet of partner ride-hailing vehicles by 2022, and Yandex is offering the camera to other companies such as those with delivery van fleets. Yandex.Taxi has partnerships with over 700,000 ride-hailing drivers operating in more than 1,000 cities across Eastern Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan, Norway, Israel, the Ivory Coast, Finland, and Ghana.

The Yandex SignalQ2 camera is designed to be mounted on the interior of the windshield and aimed toward the driver to enhance security and monitor the driver. Even though it faces the driver, the small form factor, windshield-mounted design of the SignalQ2 does not obstruct the driver’s field of view.

This camera takes advantage of the Ambarella CV25’s real-time AI processing to determine driver identity for enhanced security and to achieve accurate driver state recognition—for example, their level of fatigue or attentiveness. The camera leverages the Ambarella CVflow® architecture’s low-power, high-performance AI and computer vision engine to run the Yandex neural network-based DMS stack and to process video at high speed (at least 30 fps). Ambarella’s on-chip H.264/H.265 video compression engine delivers constant video recording—ensuring critical evidence can be gathered in the event of a road incident—as well as optional live streaming over LTE for remote monitoring.

“We pay great attention to safety in our service, which is why we developed the SignalQ2,” said Nikolay Buldakov, SignalQ project leader at Yandex. “We chose the Ambarella CV25 SoC because it meets our performance and power criteria. It can operate with video flows from up to three sensors and run neural network algorithms on the CVflow engine with high speed and extremely low power consumption. The CVflow platform’s security functionality allowed us to be sure that the camera uses only firmware developed by us, which is especially important for devices used in safety applications. Ambarella’s team has been an outstanding partner in all stages of device development.”

“The new Yandex DMS camera based on Ambarella’s CV25 will improve safety across the Yandex ride-hailing fleet, and those of other companies,” said Senya Pertsel, senior director of marketing for Ambarella. “We are pleased to meet Yandex’s stringent requirements for high-performance AI processing, total security and very low power, in their small form factor, windshield-mounted camera.”