Driver's eye detection method of drowsy driving warning system

• US 6,130,617 A
• Filed: 06/09/1999
• Issued: 10/10/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group)
• Original Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group)
• Inventors: Yeo, Jung-hack
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Benjamin C.
• Application Number:
  US09/328,774
• Time in Patent Office: 489 Days
• Field of Search: 340/576, 340/575, 382/117, 382/203, 382/118, 382/291, 351/209, 351/246, 351/206, 600/558
• US Class Current: 340/575
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/19 Sensors therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms

Abstract

An eye detection method of a drowsy driving alarming system comprises the steps of: binarizing a driver'"'"'s face image from a CCD camera, extracting candidate areas existing in pair into a binary face image, determining one candidate pair from among the candidate pairs as nostrils, setting the remained candidate pairs forming equilateral triangles in relation with the nostrils as eye candidate pairs, and determining a candidate pair forming the smaller equilateral triangle to be the driver'"'"'s eyes.

Claims

1. An eye detection method of a drowsy driving alarming system comprising the steps of:

binarizing a driver'"'"'s face image input from a CCD camera;

extracting candidate areas existing in pair into a binary face image;

determining one candidate pair from among the candidate pairs as nostrils;

establishing the remained candidate pairs forming equilateral triangles in relation with the nostrils as eye candidate pairs; and

determining a candidate pair forming the small equilateral triangle as the driver'"'"'s eyes.

2. An eye detection method of claim 1 wherein the binarization of the driver'"'"'s face image is achieved by means of threshold filtering in which pixels having black level similar to that of eyes are designated as "1"s and the other pixels are designated as "0"s.

3. An eye detection method of claim 1 wherein from among candidate pairs one candidate pair in which its two black areas positioned most closely to each other is determined to be nostrils.

4. An eye detection method of claim 1 wherein a pair forming the smaller equilateral triangle is determined as the driver'"'"'s eyes.