Recently, the number of injuries and fatalities in traffic accidents tend to decline. However, the proportion of elderly citizens involved in traffic accidents is tending to increase in Japan and other developed countries. The elderly is known to be less resistant to impacts than younger people due to the deterioration of physical structures, such as bones and muscles. In order to improve safety performance for elderly vehicle occupants, it is necessary to know the age of the drivers in advance. However, actual age of drivers does not always correspond to the representative age because the level of resistance of the elderly has large differences in individuals. It would be necessary to detect not only the driver’s age, but also the aging level of the individual differences. In addition, in order to take convenience for the drivers into consideration, it would be necessary to use simply. Therefore, this research focused on the age of the blood vessels which can be measured easily.

The age of the blood vessels expresses the aging level of physical composition, such as the blood vessels and muscle fibers. It is calculated from the acceleration pulse wave of the blood flow. The characteristic points observed in the acceleration pulse wave are classified according to the age. Usually, the blood vessel age is measured by a contact- type photoelectric sensor. This research developed a noncontact measuring method based on an RGB camera. Evaluate accuracy of the blood vessel age with proposed method, moreover examined applicability of the method to onboard use.

In order to verify that the camera device developed in this research, measurements of proposal method were compared with that used the conventional method. The evaluation test was held on in indoor. The test subjects were thirty men aged from 20s to 60s. Proposal method is achieved that accuracy is comparable to that of the conventional method.

It should be considered that the proposed method will apply for a variety of adverse conditions when fitted in a vehicle. For example, use at night, use under backlight conditions, intrusion of the driver’s arm operating the steering wheel and movement of the captured area due to vibration. It must be necessary for the method to perform detecting the age of the blood vessels accurately even under these conditions. This paper has discussed about a noncontact method of detecting a driver’s age, f

ocusing on the age of the blood vessels, with the aim of improving safety of the occupant protection system. The experimental testing was verified as the basic concept of a noncontact blood vessel age detection system based on camera images. In order to proceed with research for fitting actual vehicle, it will be necessary to research not only improving system accuracy but also improving its robustness under onboard conditions.