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Preventing falling asleep while driving — Parallax Forums

Preventing falling asleep while driving

Stylish-EngineerStylish-Engineer Posts: 13
edited 2009-09-12 13:18 in BASIC Stamp
is there any sensore for eye detection ? , i want to count the number eye closing ant openning , so is it avaible or not ?

Comments

  • dev/nulldev/null Posts: 381
    edited 2009-08-24 00:47
    Maybe put a PIR sensor inside your sunglasses? Seriously, I think you'll have a hard time finding a solution for that problem. Drink more coffee!

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    Don't worry. Be happy
  • FranklinFranklin Posts: 4,747
    edited 2009-08-24 01:55
    Eyes are reflective so something that detects light bouncing off the eyeball would work.

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  • dev/nulldev/null Posts: 381
    edited 2009-08-24 09:37
    QTI sensor?

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    Don't worry. Be happy
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2009-08-24 11:55
    Detecting muscle tone in the neck is one way to do it, the muscles relax when one is "nodding off". A video-processing system analysing head movement is another possibility.

    I once rolled a car over on the M25 motorway - I fell asleep when I was doing about 80 MPH. My brother once fell asleep on his motorbike. Perhaps it runs in the family.

    I actually investigated this area quite thoroughly when I was working on advanced cockpit research at BAe, for detecting G-LOC in fast jet pilots. I came to the conclusion that SQUID technology measuring brain activity would be ideal, if the unit could be made small enough.

    Leon

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    Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
    Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle

    Post Edited (Leon) : 8/24/2009 12:00:29 PM GMT
  • bdbbdb Posts: 30
    edited 2009-08-24 21:54
    I could be wrong on this, but I believe I've read about some systems of this sort that rely on the tilt of the head.

    If so, I'd think you could take (off the parallax shelf) a 2-axis accelerometer ?
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2009-08-24 22:27
    bdb said...
    If so, I'd think you could take (off the parallax shelf) a 2-axis accelerometer ?

    Unlikely. Acceleromters do very poorly at measuring tilt in accelerating bodies.
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,559
    edited 2009-08-24 22:42
    Not that I'm promoting this, because something could still go terribly wrong.

    If you used two accelerometers, one mounted on the persons shoulder for example, and another mounted on the persons head, you could mathematically cancel out any acceleration/deceleration effects of the car and just sense the persons head motion relative to their shoulder.

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    Beau Schwabe

    IC Layout Engineer
    Parallax, Inc.
  • Carl HayesCarl Hayes Posts: 841
    edited 2009-08-25 01:58
    You could use a rate gyro (but not an accelerometer) to detect a nodding head. I can't help wondering why people so often suggest accelerometers in applications for which accelerometers are profoundly inappropriate.

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  • DufferDuffer Posts: 374
    edited 2009-08-25 02:06
    If you just want to detect head tilt beyond a certain angle, a simple mechanical captive pendulum or "ball-in-cage"·device should work. I've seen devices as small as an on-ear bluetooth headset advertised to detect when a person wearing it "nods off". Those devices probably use a rate gyro, but mechanical would work also.

    Duffer
  • Carl HayesCarl Hayes Posts: 841
    edited 2009-08-25 12:20
    Duffer said...

    If you just want to detect head tilt beyond a certain angle, a simple mechanical captive pendulum or "ball-in-cage"·device should work. I've seen devices as small as an on-ear bluetooth headset advertised to detect when a person wearing it "nods off". Those devices probably use a rate gyro, but mechanical would work also.

    Duffer

    A captive pendulum would detect tilt if the tilt were occurring slowly (as when reaching for a control), but if the head is in free-fall it wouldn't (or might not, anyway) detect anything until the motion stops.

    But a captive pendulum (or other accelerometer, for that's what a captive pendulum is) would cheerfuly inform you that you had just crashed.· That might be useful if you hadn't noticed.

    Maybe the real message is "don't drive if you're that sleepy".· I nodded off in a Volkswagen once, years ago, and wandered onto a gravelly shoulder, which fortunately got very noisy.· After regaining control I pulled over for a nap.

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    · -- Carl, nn5i@arrl.net
  • W9GFOW9GFO Posts: 4,010
    edited 2009-08-25 16:28
    I think that when nodding off it is unlikely that there are other significant accelerations present.

    If the head slowly droops then the accelerometer would pick that up, if the head drops quickly, the accelerometer would also pick that up.

    Very early one morning when I was 15 I drove my grandparents to a wildlife refuge in Missouri from Lincoln, NE. On the way back, still morning, they had both fallen asleep. Somewhere in Southeast Nebraska I too fell asleep at the wheel of their red Volare wagon and drifted off the two lane highway onto the gravel shoulder. The noise woke me up just as we were approaching a small narrow bridge. I was able to swerve back onto the road and over the bridge without them awaking. After that I was wide awake all the way home. I remember them commenting to my parents on what a great driver I was because they were both comfortable enough with my driving to fall asleep. I kept quiet about nearly killing us all.

    Hundreds of thousands of miles and a quarter century later and I have never dozed off since.

    Rich H
  • Carl HayesCarl Hayes Posts: 841
    edited 2009-08-25 16:41
    W9GFO said...
    I think that when nodding off it is unlikely that there are other significant accelerations present.

    If the head slowly droops then the accelerometer would pick that up, if the head drops quickly, the accelerometer would also pick that up.

    Very early one morning when I was 15 I drove my grandparents to a wildlife refuge in Missouri from Lincoln, NE. On the way back, still morning, they had both fallen asleep. Somewhere in Southeast Nebraska I too fell asleep at the wheel of their red Volare wagon and drifted off the two lane highway onto the gravel shoulder. The noise woke me up just as we were approaching a small narrow bridge. I was able to swerve back onto the road and over the bridge without them awaking. After that I was wide awake all the way home. I remember them commenting to my parents on what a great driver I was because they were both comfortable enough with my driving to fall asleep. I kept quiet about nearly killing us all.

    Hundreds of thousands of miles and a quarter century later and I have never dozed off since.

    Rich H
    Without answering the question of other accelerations when one nods off, certainly there are many various accelerations when not nodding off.· Starting, stopping, turning, going over a bump, turning to look out a window, turning to check the back seat, checking the rear view mirror, adjusting the volume on the CD player·-- the thing would go off every few seconds.

    What you want to sense is attitude, not· acceleration.· But actually I think the original idea of sensing closed eyelids would be much superior.· Abut 750 ms would be enough to keep the thing from going off when you merely blink.· But would 750 ms be fast enough to keep you alive?

    Naah.· The thing to do is not drive when you might nod off.

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    · -- Carl, nn5i@arrl.net
  • W9GFOW9GFO Posts: 4,010
    edited 2009-08-25 17:38
    Carl Hayes said...
    Starting, stopping, turning, going over a bump, turning to look out a window, turning to check the back seat, checking the rear view mirror, adjusting the volume on the CD player -- the thing would go off every few seconds.

    You could probably account for most of that with programming. Having it go off when messing with your phone or other such distraction might not be such a bad idea.
    Carl Hayes said...

    But actually I think the original idea of sensing closed eyelids would be much superior. Abut 750 ms would be enough to keep the thing from going off when you merely blink.

    I agree. It is certainly possible to drift off without nodding your head.
    Carl Hayes said...

    Naah. The thing to do is not drive when you might nod off.

    That does make the most sense.

    The other thing is, if you have a device to rely upon to keep you awake then you are more likely to use such device when you really shouldn't - putting yourself and others (including myself and my family) at greater risk.

    Rich H
  • Larry~Larry~ Posts: 242
    edited 2009-08-25 19:21
    You could always stand on the corner and sell crack

    that seams to keep people awake!!!

    Sorry could not resist


    Post Edited (Larry~) : 8/26/2009 3:42:23 PM GMT
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2009-08-25 19:29
    When I read this I realized it sounded familiar. I remember a customer talking about building a device (or maybe he had already built it) that detects when your head tilts and it beeps in your ear. I believe it was worn like a Blue Tooth earpiece.

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Engineering
  • bdbbdb Posts: 30
    edited 2009-08-26 21:54
    Hi Chris, you're right that they are already in production. I even believe I've seen similar advertised on TV.

    The simpler one http://www.comforthouse.com/dozal.html is strictly based on head tilt (from the ones I've seen, the logic is at least somewhat based on acceleration of head tilt to prevent false alerts but could also have problems with the idea of what happens if your head goes sideways instead of forward ?)

    Then there are some other, much more elaborate systems - simple Google for driver sleep alarm or for driver sleep alert seems to bring up some including

    http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2005/11/30/151705.html

    http://www.seeingmachines.com/product/DSS/?_kk=driver sleep&_kt=8c093295-0351-4ce1-bde4-a0252e3914cf&gclid=CPTN_KOnwpwCFSUMDQodPXK9nA


    But I can see even the more advanced as not alerting until you are only a hair's breath from imminent danger. Of course, my state just had to put a law on the books forbidding young drivers from texting while driving. (But us old folks are still legal to text).
  • CounterRotatingPropsCounterRotatingProps Posts: 1,132
    edited 2009-08-27 00:16
    I'm wondering if by the time any device detected the "head nod" it would already be too late. If your head's already nodding, then your muscle control has already gone lax, meaning same with controlling the steering wheel!

    @Leon: re you're brother falling asleep on a bike - did he loose his balance enough to dump the bike? yikes!

    - H

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  • tedbeautedbeau Posts: 48
    edited 2009-08-27 14:28
    I do not think that the head tilt would work for several reasons.
    1. As others have mentioned, how would it know that you are dozing off, or cheching the radio station or speedo? Would flase positives be acceptable?

    2. I have ALMOST fallen asleep at the wheel and my stepmother actually did. (Maybe it does run in the family!, Oh step, hummmm shouldn't be heraditary then).
    When she fell asleep the passenger in her van said she was looking STRAIGHT ahead with her eyes open! This is called road hyptnosis. She was staring straight ahead and not responding. When the passinger (my grandmother) woke her, she had already drifted onto the shoulder and was about to hit a roadsign. She cut the wheel hard back onto the highway and rolled the van 3 or 4 times.

    I think it's possible to fall asleep without dropping your head.
  • FORDFORD Posts: 221
    edited 2009-08-27 23:10
    You could take your wife (or mine - then its guaranteed to work) and just tell her you want to stop in at the hardware shop and buy a few power tools !!!
    Mate, that will keep you awake tongue.gif

    cheers,
    Chris
    West Oz.
  • Mark DietrichMark Dietrich Posts: 7
    edited 2009-09-11 00:59
    Hold a $20.00 bill between your thumb and forefinger. Hold that arm out the window.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2009-09-11 10:49
    Leon said...

    I once rolled a car over on the M25 motorway - I fell asleep when I was doing about 80 MPH. My brother once fell asleep on his motorbike. Perhaps it runs in the family.


    Leon

    Managing 80MPH on the M25?? You were lucky! must have been early morning lol.gif
    Lucky if i get out of 2nd gear.
  • FearTurtlesFearTurtles Posts: 89
    edited 2009-09-11 12:42
    I've done a lot of 16 hour day drives and the best thing I have found to keep we awake is sunflower seeds. The problem with having a device wake you up is that you can always have a startling effect which in itself can cause an accident. So I really don't think the idea of some device that will keep me awake will keep me safe. You are better off to pulling over for 10 minutes to either take a nap or just get out of the car and walk around to help revive yourself. The time lost in doing so will always be worth your life.
  • mouzgmouzg Posts: 21
    edited 2009-09-11 17:23
    I dont believe its a sensor.An automobil brand (maybe bmw im not sure) had developed a system like this..The best solution is to mount a camera with 2 servos on your rearview mirror..The hard job is done by software.The iris of the eye is something uinque its colours are something like a fingerprint.So you have to make a camera that folows your eyes and a software that recognises the iris of your eye (understands which is the eye from the whole image)and sees if you blink and how long your eyelids are closed....Pretty hard(sorry for the bad english)
  • FearTurtlesFearTurtles Posts: 89
    edited 2009-09-12 13:18
    Guess sunglasses are out of the question with that system. LOL
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