Driver fatigue assessment device and method
AssigneesDenso Corporation, National University Corporation Kagawa University
InventorsKazuyoshi Isaji, Naohiko Tsuru, Takahiro Wada, Hiroshi Kaneko
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Abstract
A driver fatigue assessment device may include; a look information generator to generate look information regarding at least one of a driver's direction of a look and a locus at which a driver is looking; a visual stimulator to provide a visual stimulus within a driver's field of view at a first position and then move the location thereof to a second position; a change determination unit to determine whether the look information has changed in response to the movement of the visual stimulus; and a fatigue decision unit to assess driver fatigue based upon an output of the change determination unit.
Claims19
A driver fatigue assessment device comprising;
- a look information generator to generate look information regarding at least one of a driver's direction of a look and a locus at which a driver is looking;
- a visual stimulator to provide a visual stimulus within a driver's field of view at a first position and then at a second position;
- a change determination unit to determine whether the look information has changed in response to the change in the visual stimulus position;
- and
- a fatigue decision unit to assess driver fatigue based upon an output of the change determination unit.
A driver fatigue assessment method comprising:
- detecting a look direction of a driver;
- detecting a look locus at which the driver is looking based upon on the look direction;
- providing a visual stimulus at a first position within the peripheral vision region of the driver;
- moving the visual stimulus to a second position within the peripheral vision region of the driver;
- determining whether the look locus followed the movement of the visual stimulus from the first to the second position;
- and
- assessing a level of fatigue of the driver based upon whether a change in the look locus has been determined.
A method of assessing driver fatigue, the method comprising:
- providing a visual stimulus at a first position in a driver's field of view;
- determining at least one of a first direction of a driver's look and a first position at which the driver is looking;
- providing a visual stimulus at a second position in a driver's field of view;
- and
- determining at least one of a second direction of a driver's look and a second position at which the driver is looking, respectively;
- and
- determining whether the driver's eyes have responded to the change in position of the visual stimulus.
An apparatus for assessing driver fatigue, the apparatus comprising:
- means for providing a visual stimulus at a first position in a driver's field of view;
- means for determining at least one of a first direction of a driver's look and a first position at which the driver is looking;
- means for providing a visual stimulus at a second position in a driver's field of view;
- and
- means for determining at least one of a second direction of a driver's look and a second position at which the driver is looking, respectively;
- and
- means for determining whether the driver's eyes have responded to the change in position of the visual stimulus.
A machine-readable medium comprising instructions, execution of which by a machine facilitates assessing driver fatigue, the machine-readable instructions including:
- a first stimulator code segment to provide a visual stimulus at a first position in a driver's field of view;
- a first direction determination code segment to determine at least one of a first direction of a driver's look and a first position at which the driver is looking;
- a second stimulator code segment to provide a visual stimulus at a second position in a driver's field of view;
- and
- a second direction code segment to determine at least one of a second direction of a driver's look and a second position at which the driver is looking, respectively;
- and
- a decision code segment to determine whether the driver's eyes have responded to the change in position of the visual stimulus.
A driver fatigue assessment device comprising;
- a look information generator to generate look information regarding at least one of a driver's direction of a look and a locus at which a driver is looking;
- a visual stimulator to provide a visual stimulus within a driver's field of view;
- a gaze duration determination unit to determine how long the driver gazes at the visual stimulus and to output a time tGAZE indicative thereof;
- a thresholding unit to determine whether tGAZE at least equals a minimum reference time TREF;
- a fatigue decision unit to assess driver fatigue based upon an output of the thresholding unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.