Analysis of Driver Impairment, Fatigue, and Drowsiness and an Unobtrusive Vehicle-Based Detection Scheme

Driver impairment due to fatigue/drowsiness, distraction and use of alcohol/drugs is one of the leading causes of accidents on US highways and around the world. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of US department of Transportation estimates that nearly 100,000 crashes annually are caused by fatigue/drowsiness, more then 17000 people die every year due to drunk driving According to FARS data there are, on the average, 1,544 fatalities, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses as a results of driver fatigue each year. This paper provides an insight into the problem of impaired driving due to fatigue, drowsiness, or substance use (alcohol), and distraction. It provides a review of the present state of research, the developing technologies, and the future trends. Various factors that may contribute to this problem are discussed. A variety of countermeasures developed by research and commercial organizations, their merits and demerits are presented. Finally, a method for detecting driver drowsiness unobtrusively is demonstrated.The same method can be applied to detecting distracted driving due to other influences. The results of a driver fatigue/drowsy experiment conducted at The Center for Intelligent Systems Research (CISR) Vehicle Simulator Laboratory at The George Washington University are discussed in details.