Driver Vigilance Monitoring System: An Approach

Increasing number of traffic accidents are caused due to driver¿s inability to cope up with sudden changes in driving condition such as vehicle light coming from the opposite direction. In India it is particularly significant as roads are narrow and medians are scarcely present. The use of driver monitoring system can help alleviate this problem to some extent. Driver monitoring system utilizes changes in some kind of physiological characteristics of the driver such as heart beats or facial expression. The effect of vehicle light is reflected in the behavior of, for example eyes being open or close that is the blinking of eyes. The driver will exhibit a similar behavior in sunlight glare condition as well. In the sound effect condition, the driver becomes nervous and the lines may appear on the forehead. A simple system of webcam for real time image acquisition and an algorithm to detect changes in driver¿s image characteristics is used.