METHOD FOR OUTPUTTING A DROWSINESS WARNING AND CONTROL UNIT

• US 20170177959A1
• Filed: 11/11/2016
• Published: 06/22/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Original Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Inventors: Boos, Ronald
• Granted Patent: US 9,984,298 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/597 Recognising the driver's state or behaviour, e.g. attention or drowsiness
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms

Abstract

A method for outputting a drowsiness warning. In this method, a degree of drowsiness of a driver of a vehicle is initially read in. A display signal is subsequently generated as a function of the degree of drowsiness. The display signal includes a sequence of images as the drowsiness warning displayable via a display device of the vehicle and including at least one eye area of the driver.

Claims

1. A method for outputting a drowsiness warning, the method comprising:

reading in a degree of drowsiness of a driver of a vehicle; and

generating a display signal using the degree of drowsiness, the display signal including a sequence of images as the drowsiness warning displayable via a display device and including at least one eye area of the driver.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein in the generating step, the sequence of images is selected from an image sequence, which represents a sequence of images of the eye area of the driver detected by a driver observation camera.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein in reading in step, at least one of:

i) a signal provided using at least one of a driver observation camera of the vehicle and a lane-keeping assistant of the vehicle, and ii) a steering angle of the vehicle, is read in as the degree of drowsiness.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the sequence of images via the display device using the display signal.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

evaluating the degree of drowsiness, wherein in the step of generating, the display signal is generated as a function of a result of the evaluation.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

providing at least one of;

i) a visual warning signal, ii) an acoustic warning signal, and iii) a haptic warning signal, for warning the driver of the drowsiness as a function of the degree of drowsiness.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, in which the generating step is carried out subsequent to the providing step.

8. A control unit designed to:

read in a degree of drowsiness of a driver of a vehicle; and

generate a display signal using the degree of drowsiness, the display signal including a sequence of images as the drowsiness warning displayable via a display device and including at least one eye area of the driver.

9. A non-transitory machine-readable memory medium on which is stored a computer program for outputting a drowsiness warning, the computer program, when executed by a processor, causing the processor to perform:

reading in a degree of drowsiness of a driver of a vehicle; and

generating a display signal using the degree of drowsiness, the display signal including a sequence of images as the drowsiness warning displayable via a display device and including at least one eye area of the driver.