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Digital Dashboard Device Detects Driver Drowsiness

Posted by timothy on from the string-between-ceiling-and-nostril dept.

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."

14 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Dormant D Device Disturbed Drilling Dentist. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think the title has only got Ds in it.

    1. Re:Dormant D Device Disturbed Drilling Dentist. by telchine · · Score: 4, Funny

      Do Dying Drivers Defy Death Deploying Drowsiness Device?

    2. Re:Dormant D Device Disturbed Drilling Dentist. by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Doubtful. Dreamy Driving Death Doesn't Dissuade Defiant Dickheads.

      Damn.

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  2. nice alliteration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    does it also sell sea shells by the sea shore?

  3. Trouble ahead ... by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Trouble ahead ... by Zakabog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

      I imagine the opposite, where the alarm sounds off and the driver goes and takes a rest rather than continuing driving. Or in a scenario with passengers, one of the passengers say 'Hey you're falling asleep let me drive/take a rest.' It'd be harder for the driver to say 'I'm fine to drive' when there's an alarm like this going off ever few minutes.

    2. Re:Trouble ahead ... by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

      I really don't think that people are so stupid that they will think that they are not tired because a car alarm hasn't gone off. Do you also think that people won't use brakes because they can stop by driving into a wall and have the airbags protect them?

      If the car starts beeping to wake you up then you have long gone past the time that you should have stopped for a rest. While you might not actually close your eyes, extreme tiredness slows the reflexes to the same level as driving while intoxicated.

    3. Re:Trouble ahead ... by RMH101 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem here is that tiredness is something that a) creeps up on you, and b) impairs your ability to make judgements, including "am I too tired to drive?".
      I doubt there's anyone here who's been driving for a while who hasn't ended up driving at least once when they've become very tired, and it's taken a shock to make them realise how tired they actually were.

  4. Re:Perfect for traffic - let's make it mandatory? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if this thing will detect the eyes of a drunk driver as someone who is too sleepy?

  5. Awesome title by Haedrian · · Score: 3, Funny

    ++ Definitely Diminishing Distinct Danger

  6. Re:Perfect for traffic - let's make it mandatory? by telchine · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  7. Who cares about the article's content... by elsurexiste · · Score: 3, Informative

    Who cares about the article's content, when the title was written with 6 words that start with "D". It could have been better, though: "Digital Dashboard Device Diligently Detects Driver Drowsiness".

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    1. Re:Who cares about the article's content... by Soulskill · · Score: 3, Funny

      Don't disregard delving deeply despite distracting descriptors.

  8. Head movement by Laser+Dan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder how well it copes with head movement.

    TFA shows very zoomed in images of eyes and two large cameras, but they say the system is "half the size of a matchbox". If each camera plus processor is really so small, that's a pretty good system. And they say it can do it at 200 FPS? Thats a lot of image processing.

    I suspect they locate the eyes in a low resolution image first then just process the eye regions at 200 Hz, keeping them centred to account for head movement. Otherwise it would be impossible in the matchbox size with current DSPs.
    Anyone have more details?