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."

Comments

nice alliteration

[Anonymous Coward]

does it also sell sea shells by the sea shore?

Trouble ahead ...

[JasterBobaMereel]

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

Re:Trouble ahead ...

[RMH101]

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.

Re:Perfect for traffic - let's make it mandatory?

[WrongSizeGlass]

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

Re:Dormant D Device Disturbed Drilling Dentist.

[telchine]

Do Dying Drivers Defy Death Deploying Drowsiness Device?

Re:Dormant D Device Disturbed Drilling Dentist.

[L4t3r4lu5]

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

Damn.