Was Hyundai working on infrared "Super Night Vision"? Research and speculation.

[andrewia]

Skip to the last 3 paragraphs for a summary; the rest is just explanation and research.

I'm a software developer who is working on a few projects to modify my '15 Genesis sedan, so I've been reading through all its possible CAN-Bus messages. Somebody helpfully dumped a long manifest of internal CAN Bus messages (or diagnostic commands) a few years ago, including internal names for each message. 'This manifest is working with minimal differences across all Hyundai/Kia/Genesis models in the OpenPilot community, wjo uses these messages to hijack the LKAS and SCC systems of their cars. It covers tons of features including rare features like part-time 4WD, rear seat displays, urea levels (for Diesel models?), and SPAS auto-parking.

One particular group of CAN messages caught my attention: "SNV". It's important enough to have its own ECU, and had messages including "CF_Snv_PedestrianDetect" and "CF_Snv_IRLampControl" (both of which involve the BCM, which does a lot of lighting control and alarm functionality). The SNV receives messages about the status of the low beams (but not high beams), getting warnings when the low beams or high beams are burnt out, having an "SNVWarn" setting in the cluster menus (like most settings, it goes between 0 and 3), receiving speed readouts from the Transmission Control Unit, and knowing what display is currently visible on the cluster. In comparison with LKAS, SNV does not get updates about wiper positions, headlight LED Drive Module failures, or ignition state. Finally, ther's mysterious message for "AVTail", which is only shared with it, the central gateway/SJB, HUD, cluster, and SNV ECU. There's a similarly named "AV_TAIL" message, but that's only shared between the BCM and instrument cluster (but not the SNV).

Googling around, other Hyundai/Kia models as early as 2006 have an "AV Tail" wire from the BCM into the infotainment's "Auto Light Input", and this wire can be toggled by the BCM when the auto brightness sensor hits a threshold (even while in ACC ignition mode). AV Tail can also be a CAN bus message (which makes sense to simplify wiring harnesses). Some info about AV Tail includes:

AV Tail Output Control is started In ACC, IGN, START regardless of MFSW Auto Light switch. CAN signal AV_Tail is set/reset at the same time as AV Tail.

AV Control: Autolight sensing with day light condition: AV Tail on. Autolight sensing with night light condition: AV Tail off.

In ACC, IGN, START terminal states, monitoring of the auto light sensor supply’s range (AutoLightPwr) is performed and a failure is raises up (Auto Light failure) when the supply’s voltage is out of range (outside of range [4V :6V]). If Auto Light failure occurs and as long as this error is present, the tail lamp and head lamp low must be turned on regardless of the sunlight level provided by the sensor. When physical Auto light sensor failure occurs the Lamps are turned on, because a zero voltage level is provided by the sensor when internal failure is present. This is designed to prevent any head lamp cut off when the failure occurs during the night.

I'm guessing "AV Tail" was originally a reverse camera brightness signal, but has been repurposed as a general purpose brightness sensor signal. So we can assume the SNV system is listening to this AVTail signal to determine if it's bright outside.

To summarize: "SNV" controls IR lamps, has adjustable warnings for pedestrians, and gets speed and auto brightness information. I conclude that this was supposed to be a "Super Night Vision" system with infrared cameras and pedestrian detection. This is already present in other brands like Cadillac and Mercedes, so it makes sense that Hyundai would consider it as well. The presence of these messages indicate a pretty advanced level of development, since all these integrations were planned.

The only missing piece is where the camera view would be displayed. Looking at the block diagrams of the 2015 Genesis and Equus instrument clusters, the Supervision clusters have dedicated display controllers, with only low bandwidth connections from the primary cluster controller. However, the AVM (Around View Monitor/360 cameras) and basic PGS (Parking Guidance System/reverse camera) offer a clue. Both systems just send an analog video signal to the head unit, with the PGS module or AVM FPGA doing all the video processing and changing the analog signal when a command is sent from the head unit. The SNV system could do the same, sending an analog signal to the head unit to keep things simple. Alternatively, there would be a different supervision cluster with circuitry to support piping an analog video feed directly to the instrument cluster.

Thanks for following my research journey. It's too bad this was never released to the public, but with how much easier it is to pipe compressed video over high-speed busses these days, maybe Super Night Vision will come to fruition soon.