Methods for machine vision based driver monitoring applications

Abstract

The scope of this thesis is to investigate the feasibility of techniques and methods, previously examined within the industry, for monitoring the driver's momentary distraction state and level of vigilance during a driving task. The study does not penetrate deeply into the fundamentals of the proposed methods but rather provides a multidisciplinary review by adopting new aspects and innovative approaches to state-of-art monitoring applications for adapting them to an in-vehicle environment. The hypotheses of this thesis states that detecting the level of distraction and/or fatigue of a driver can be performed by means of a set of image processing methods, enabling eye-based measurements to be fused with other safety-monitoring indicators such as lane-keeping performance or steering activity.