You know you're in trouble when your boss catches you yawning during a meeting, and your eyes better be wide open when your significant other is going on and on about something. There isn't much anyone can do to help you in those cases, but new technology could save your life if your car catches you with your mouth agape and your eyes closed.
Researchers in India and Tennessee have developed the technology for an in-car camera capable of recognizing the facial cues present in a yawn. The system then tells the driver he (or she) might be dangerously drowsy and ought to stop for a cup of joe or a break. The folks behind the yawn-detector claim it is more accurate than current systems found in some luxury automobiles, which they say may report a false positive when a driver gets the sun in his eyes or is singing along to the chorus of "Take On Me."
It's a key discovery that could go a long way toward increasing safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that drowsy driving causes nearly 100,000 crashes each year. Worse yet, those accidents tend to be really serious because sleeping drivers rarely take evasive action. Despite what your buddies may have told you, rolling down the window or turning up the radio doesn't help -- but pulling off the road for a quick nap does. The problem is, by the time you've noticed how tired you are, your car might already be wrapped around a tree.
We're pretty sure the anti-yawn technology will appear in long-haul trucks at some point, but for the sake of anyone driving a beige four-cylinder Toyota Camry or traveling through Nebraska, we hope it also becomes an option on passenger cars.
According to the authors of the study (.pdf), published in the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics, the physiological cues of drowsiness include drooping eyelids, yawning, slackening neck muscles and a head that periodically falls forward -- symptoms familiar to anyone who has suffered through an 8 a.m. economics class in college. Those symptoms may take place in any particular order, but the study authors found that the yawn is the most fool-proof method of establishing drowsiness in a vehicle environment.
A methodology known as percentage eyelid closure (PERCLOS) is fine for determining drowsiness in a sleep study or other controlled environment, but it is difficult to calibrate in a car because it is highly sensitive to motion, image intensity and the skin color of the driver -- variables not easily controlled.
While some luxury cars currently have some method of monitoring driver fatigue, none of them examine yawning. Mercedes-Benz introduced Attention Assist in the 2010 E-Class, but the system primarily relies on steering input to determine whether a driver is distracted by anything from a cell phone to that screaming kid in the backseat. Toyota went a step further with the Lexus Driver Monitor System, a camera-based overlord that determines whether the driver is awake enough to drive such a precision machine as the LS600. Fail the awake test, and the Lex applies the brakes.
We know you would never drive while drowsy, but before you dismiss the yawn-cam as just another privacy-invading auto-nanny, consider that it might be useful for all those late-night long-haul truckers, second-shift workers and dumb teenagers out there, ready to cross that center yellow line.
Photo: Flickr/ jk5854
