Slashdot Mirror
Digital Dashboard Device Detects Driver Drowsiness
Pickens writes "Science Daily Headlines reports that researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology have developed a self-contained, dashboard-mounted assistant system that tracks a driver's eye movements and issues a warning before the driver has an opportunity to nod off to sleep. 'What we have developed is a small modular system with its own hardware and programs on board, so that the line of vision is computed directly within the camera itself,' says Professor Husar. 'Since the Eyetracker is fitted with at least two cameras that record images stereoscopically — meaning in three dimensions — the system can easily identify the spatial position of the pupil and the line of vision.' The cameras, which can be installed in any model of car, evaluate up to 200 images per second to identify the line of vision. If the camera modules detect that the eye is closed for longer than a user-defined interval, it sounds an alarm. The Eyetracker also has applications in computer games where players could look around themselves without requiring a joystick to change their viewing direction, and in marketing and advertising, where researchers could determine which parts of a poster or advertising spot receive longer attention from their viewers."
So rather than 10 crashes because people fell asleep...
We have 20 crashes because rather than stopping for a coffee and a rest people relied on this and crashed when the alarm went off ...
If you are driving tired you are an accident waiting to happen .. falling asleep is just the worst case
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
I'll be able to keep going now when I'm driving late and tired instead of pulling in at a rest stop, knowing that the car will wake me. Technology has done so much for drivers, with ABS we don't need to slow down in snow and ice, air bags mean we don't need to bother with seat belts and cruise control means you don't need to look at the speedo.
I imagine trucks would be the first to try this out as they driver for longer periods, and it seems to be that they have more sleep-related accidents (at least I see more reports about them).
I see no problems in making this mandatory in traffic a.s.a.p.
Drivers will oppose it. That's the main problem.
Drivers usually know when they're tired, but they tend to drive anyway. They don't need some electronics to tell them this.
They drive because they're impatient and not driving would be an inconvenience to them. It's not so much they don't care that they'll be involved in an accident, it's just that they don't think it'll happen to them.
Yes, but this is a stand-alone device anyone can slap on their dash... like when the GPS came out of the dash and became stand-alone... So I don't need to buy a brand new lexus to get the technology.. I can spend a few hundy and have it annoy me in my Jeep..
If you could prove a statistically significant savings of life I'd have no objections, however, I'm tired of the recent string of laws designed to roads safer but only serve to make it look like politicians are doing something positive. Forcing a law through that could potentiality save 100s of lives but inconveniences all driver is a mistake if the 100s of lives amount to less than 0.0001% of the people driving.
"He is so stupid. And now back to the wall!" Moe Szyslak
Nope.
However for your good faith effort I will reply rather than mark you troll.
"Let's make it mandatory! Then every infraction will be posted to the police, and the media, and maintained on a public page. Captain Panic, who was pulled over on suspicion of driving tired, pleaded not guilty, saying that he was just trying to figure out more information about the grooved pavement in front of him."
"Pshaw! Likely story!"
"Captain Panic's employer has been contacted and his hours have been cut since, as he cannot drive properly rested, he must be working too hard."
No, surveillance measures are all to easily abused in this Orwellian Age.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The Eyetracker also has applications in computer games where players could look around themselves without requiring a joystick to change their viewing direction
1) Player wants to move the in game camera left 45 degrees
2) Player moves eyes left 45 degrees
3) The camera moves successfully, but the player doesn't see that because their eyes were pointing at their desk lamp to the side of the monitor
4) Not profit!
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
It sounds an alarm when your eyes are closed for more than a blink. I'd welcome this, as any sane person should.
There are several problems here.
The first problem is that tired people are not necessarily closing their eyes. What happens is that they drift away in their thoughts and lose concentration; they keep looking but stop seeing. A camera like that can't help here. An EEG helmet might be more effective but totally impractical.
The second problem is that in southern states (CA to FL) you must use dark sunglasses from 6am to 8pm during summer (and a bit less during winter) simply because there is too much of sunlight here. How is the camera going to see through the dark lenses of those glasses, and reject reflections at the same time? And at night, with glasses or without, it's too dark for the camera to see the driver's eyes anyway.