Driver Distraction Monitoring and Alerting System

Abstract

Distraction while driving is one of the major causes of road mishaps. Driving a vehicle requires unwavered attention of driver. Moreover, activities which require the driver to take his eyes off the road for an extended period can lead to fatal accidents. The driver should focus on the road ahead all the time. Another reason for increasing road accidents is fatigue, wherein the driver unknowingly loses focus on the driving activity, primarily due to sleep deprivation. Driving in an inattentive state reduces driver’s ability to react to situations and reduces control over vehicle. Road mishaps can be avoided if driver is provided timely alert when a distracted state is detected. In this paper we propose to minimize distraction by alerting the driver as soon as signs of distraction are detected. The implemented methodology uses a camera mounted in car. This proposed solution detects distraction using two parallelly computed functions, one function computes distraction based on the position of the pupil and the other function calculates drowsiness. If either of the two parameters detects distraction, a sound alert is generated.