Part of our FatigueM8 solution is a forward facing camera, that captures the road and traffic conditions our drivers are operating in. The camera position has been refined through a few iterations. The current positioning allows for the installation of the FatigueM8 unit on an angle, catering for the shape of dashboards that generally slope down towards the front of the vehicle. The resulting photographs capture the road and traffic quite well.
In early May 2020 we noticed a change in the photo’s that were being captured, there was a lot more sky and a lot less road (as can be seen below). Chatting with our driver, they’d adjusted the angle of the unit to decrease the reflection of the blue light emitted by the LCD screen and resulted in a beautiful selection of “sky shots”.
As discussed in last week’s post, we have removed the LCD screen in the latest iteration to resolve the light emission. Now that we’ve installed the new version we’ve noticed the “sky shots” returning. The cause is again because of the camera angle. In our original design we catered for the “dashboard angle”, however with the new design, the length of the unit is shorter, which allows for the unit to sit essentially flat, pointing the camera skywards.
The change in the camera angle can be seen clear in the images below, using our “view finder jig”.
Our solution is currently will be to create an adjustable camera mount, which will adapt to the different FatigueM8 mounting positions. It’s just a paper sketch at the moment, but within the week it’s be transformed into a 3D print and fitted into the truck for testing.
Until next week, stay safe.
