Driver Alertness Monitoring using Fusion of Facial Features and Bio-Signals

Driver drowsiness is among the leading causal factors in traffic accidents occurring worldwide. This paper describes a method to monitor driver safety by analyzing information related to fatigue using two distinct methods: eye movement monitoring and bio-signal processing. A monitoring system is designed in Android-based smartphone where it receives sensory data via wireless sensor network and further processes the data to indicate the current driving aptitude of the driver. It is critical that several sensors are integrated and synchronized for a more realistic evaluation of the driver behavior. The sensors applied include a video sensor to capture the driver image and a bio-signal sensor to gather the driver photoplethysmograph signal. A dynamic Bayesian network framework is used for the driver fatigue evaluation. A warning alarm is sounded if driver fatigue is believed to reach a defined threshold. The manifold testing of the system demonstrates the practical use of multiple features, particularly with discrete methods, and their fusion enables a more authentic and ample fatigue detection.