Research to prevent the driver from falling asleep behind the wheel

Petit, C.; Chaput, D.; Tarriere, C.; Le Coz, J-Y.; Planque, S.

Affiliations

¹RENAULT - Laboratoire de Physiologie, Nanterre, France

Abstract

A system has been developed to detect drops in driver alertness on the basis of steering wheel movements. During a period of system validation, 30 experiments were performed on the driving simulator of the VTI (Sweden). 28 of the experiments led to the same conclusion: the system is capable of discriminating between two different alertness levels. 12 of the experiments ended with dozing off, causing the driver to leave the road; this dozing off could have been prevented by the system if the alarm had been actuated.

These results obtained on simulator were able to be checked in realworld driving conditions by two experiments performed on motorway. Both drivers showed drops in alertness that were detected by the system.

Cited By (2)

Year	Entry
1996	Filiatrault DD, Cooper PJ, King DJ, Siegmund GP, Wong PKH. Efficiency of vehicle-based data to predict lane departure arising from loss of alertness due to fatigue. In: 40th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 7-9, 1996; Vancouver, BC.363-376.
1996	Haworth NL. Fatigue detection in trucks in normal operations. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 13-16, 1996; Melbourne, Australia.1873-1879.