Detecting drowsiness at the wheel for touring car drivers
Dutch touring car company Royal Beuk BV is currently testing technology called the Driver State Sensor that monitors whether a bus driver is getting drowsy at the wheel. Some 20 vehicles are being equipped with a system designed by Australian company Seeing Machines, which “uses infrared light and a camera to record eye movements to monitor whether a driver’s gaze is distracted from the road for too long or if they is blinking progressively more slowly, signs they may be nodding off.” If the system detects drowsiness, it will warn the driver with an alarm fitted to their chair and an audio signal, and additional alarms will also call for human intervention.
The Driver State Sensor costs 15,000 euro which, according to Marc Beuk in an RTL Nieuws interview is too expensive for the touring car branch, but thanks to the collaboration between Royal Beuk and Seeing Machines, the price could go down to as much as 5,000 euro.
It has been said that driving drowsy is a lot like driving drunk, but there’s no social taboo on it while it is just as dangerous.
(Link: phys.org, Photo of Beuk touring car by marie-II, some rights reserved)
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