Himax Technologies, Inc. announced its participation in the embedded world Exhibition&Conference held in Nuremberg from April 9 to 11, 2024. Himax will showcase its WiseEyeTM applications and AI capabilities at the tinyML Pavilion booth, in collaboration with several ecosystem partners, through interactive demonstrations and expert-led discussions on-site. With Himax's powerful AI and industry-leading ultralow power technology, battery powered endpoint AI devices can operate with a significantly extended battery life.

The exhibition will feature a range of in-house solutions, such as the versatile WiseEye Modules for seamless plug-and-play integration, and WiseEye Vein, a groundbreaking highly-secure contactless palm vein authentication solution. Additional live demonstrations with ecosystem partners, including a thumb-sized AI vision module with Seeed Studio (?Seeed?), a smart rodent camera with Laiwa Communication Ltd.(?Laiwa?), and many others will also be on display. During the event, Himax is partnering with the tinyML Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing ultralow power machine learning technologies for edge devices, to underscore the joint vision of harnessing tinyML technology to enable trillions of distributed intelligent devices seamlessly integrated into daily life, all while adhering to ultralow power constraints.

At the forefront of this initiative is Himax's WiseEye AI, which offers always-on tinyML AI solutions with renowned ultralow power consumption along with preeminent security and privacy protection. WiseEye?s versatility significantly benefits AI developers in prototyping and deploying inferences for endpoint AI devices, particularly those oriented towards battery-driven applications. Amidst a world of exploding AI adoption, Himax has a steadfast commitment to advancing its AI capabilities, as evidenced by its successful integration into Dell notebooks and growing adoption in various IoT applications.

Concurrently, Himax is expanding its vision-AI solutions across diverse domains. A pivotal strategy in broadening this AI market reach involves the introduction of a series of production-ready WiseEye Modules. Characterized by their ultralow power, compact form factor and universal interface, these modules offer a seamless plug-and-play experience with exceptional no-code/low-code AI capabilities.

Equipped with a variety of pre-trained machine learning models which address specific use cases, AI developers can effortlessly and promptly program tailored inferences into the modules. As an illustration, the WiseEye Module has seen successful adoption in battery powered parking systems across various regions in Asia. With its pre-trained motion and occupancy detection AI, it streamlines vehicle billing processes, and, most importantly, the battery-powered design simplifies installation and maintenance effort compared to conventional wired solutions.

The exhibition will also feature a live demonstration of the WiseEye Vein Module, an ultralow power highly-secure palm vein authentication solution. Boasting exceptional AI capabilities and significantly lower power consumption, it distinguishes itself from expensive and power-intensive discrete embedded processor alternatives, which incur higher costs and greater power consumption while performing similar tasks. The palm vein authentication technology offers unparalleled security by leveraging unique vascular patterns housed inside the body, making forgery extremely challenging.

The solution features a touchless and non-intrusive liveness check function, ensuring a healthy and hygienic user experience. Consequently, it emerges as a highly secure alternative for personal identification, suitable for door security, login authentication, and various other scenarios. In addition, the ultralow power WiseEye Vein Module consumes less than 12 milliwatts, merely a quarter of what competing solutions require, setting the stage to transform next-generation access control applications.

This is achieved through compact, battery-powered devices offering exceptional accuracy and minimal power usage, while seamlessly blending into everyday life. In yet another compelling showcase of smart city innovation at embedded world, Himax has teamed up with Laiwa to unveil an ultralow power Smart Rodent Camera, powered by Himax WiseEye. The camera, featuring proprietary AI inference with rodent motion detection, enables continuous 24/7 monitoring and detection capabilities, boasting years of battery life.

The rodent motion detection specifically targets regions of interest (ROI) where rodent activity is detected, effectively minimizing common false alarms encountered in conventional solutions. It excels at accurately identifying rodents amidst various objects. Upon detecting a rodent, the camera swiftly activates, capturing snapshots, and engaging for precise analysis.

Furthermore, the camera integrates NB-IoT or CAT-M1 mobile network modules enabling seamless picture storage through wireless connectivity, where data is transmitted to the cloud for comprehensive assessment. Additionally, the camera, featuring near-infrared ("NIR") light spectrum, ensures clear imaging without disturbing rodents with flashes, facilitating proactive measures to deter wildlife damage. The versatile features and extended battery life of the smart camera solution make it ideal for various applications, including public buildings, residential areas, restaurants, hospitality, agriculture, food industry, just to name a few.