Vigilance monitoring technique for vehicle operators
First Claim
1. A vigilance monitoring system for alerting a driver of a vehicle upon detecting a state of drowsiness by calculation of a deviation between a time derivative of displacement on a driver-vehicle interface and a moving average for the time derivative of displacement to thereby quantify the state of drowsiness of the driver independent of conditions inside and outside the vehicle, the system comprising:
- a sensor connected to at least one driver-vehicle interface to monitor displacement of the driver-vehicle interface;
an intelligent control in communication with the sensor;
a time derivative profile modeled from the time derivative of displacement using the intelligent control;
a general trend modeled from the moving average of the time derivative of displacement using the intelligent control; and
a spikiness index defined by a degree of deviation between the time derivative profile and the general trend to thereby quantify the state of drowsiness of the driver independent of conditions inside and outside of the vehicle.
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Abstract
A vigilance monitoring system to determine the alertness of a driver of a vehicle. The system uses one or multiple sensors located at the driver-vehicle interface (steering wheel, accelerator, brakes). The sensor monitors the magnitude and frequency of the force (or displacement) exerted by a driver at the driver interface. A time derivative of the force or displacement profile is created. The variability of the time derivative of the force/displacement data from the general trend of the data as obtained by an optimized moving average of the data. An intelligent control system measures the variability and compares with an alertness rating scale to determine the alertness score of the driver and issue warning signals and actions as appropriate.
259 Citations
21 Claims
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1. A vigilance monitoring system for alerting a driver of a vehicle upon detecting a state of drowsiness by calculation of a deviation between a time derivative of displacement on a driver-vehicle interface and a moving average for the time derivative of displacement to thereby quantify the state of drowsiness of the driver independent of conditions inside and outside the vehicle, the system comprising:
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a sensor connected to at least one driver-vehicle interface to monitor displacement of the driver-vehicle interface;
an intelligent control in communication with the sensor;
a time derivative profile modeled from the time derivative of displacement using the intelligent control;
a general trend modeled from the moving average of the time derivative of displacement using the intelligent control; and
a spikiness index defined by a degree of deviation between the time derivative profile and the general trend to thereby quantify the state of drowsiness of the driver independent of conditions inside and outside of the vehicle. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method for monitoring and alerting a driver of drowsiness, comprising:
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monitoring an input from the driver on at least one driver-vehicle interface using a sensor;
calculating a time derivative of the input at the sensor using an intelligent control;
generating a moving average for the time derivative of the input at the sensor using the intelligent control;
comparing a deviation between the time derivative of the input at the sensor and the moving average for characterizing drowsiness of the driver independent of road conditions or vehicle behavior; and
alerting the driver of drowsiness upon detection of a decrease in the deviation between the time derivative of the input at the sensor and the moving average. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13)
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- 14. A method for monitoring and alerting a driver of drowsiness in real-time comprising detecting a decrease in a deviation between a time derivative of an input by a driver at a sensor on a vehicle-driver interface and a moving average of the time derivative.
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17. A vigilance monitoring system for alerting a driver of a state of drowsiness using a spikiness index defined by a deviation between a time derivative of displacement of a driver-vehicle interface and a moving average of the time derivative of displacement, the system comprising:
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a sensor connected to the driver-vehicle interface and in communication with an intelligent control;
a decrease in the spikiness index relative to previous levels of the spikiness index monitored by the intelligent control to thereby assist detection of drowsiness. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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Specification