Analysis of the circumstances surrounding motorway accidents clearly points to drowsiness at the steering wheel as one of the main causes. It is therefore not hard to understand the growing interest shown by the car makers in rapidly developing a system for detecting lapses of alertness. Renault's Departement Biomedical de l'Automobile (France) recently organized a series of tests to validate such a system. Twenty-one tests were performed on a driving track at night. Numerous lapses of alertness were obtained, leading to drivers often dozing off and leaving the road. In this paper the results are presented of the physiological recordings (electroencephalogram (EEG), electro-oculogram), and the behavioural the behavioural recordings (analysis of the video film of the driver's face). It is shown how a physiological reference of the driver's level of alertness from this data is established. The correlation between the results provided by the EEG and those obtained by behavioural analysis is discussed. A multi-sensor approach, based on the analysis of driving behaviour, and the respiratory signal and the automatic processing of the film of the driver's face are dealt with. The study of the driver's reactions based on mechanical signals collected on the vehicle is also briefly described. (A)
Samenvatting