Driver Fatigue, Distraction, and Alerting Technology

Transecurity successfully developed a multi-variable drowsy driver mitigation system (DDMS) concept in their SBIR Phase I project. This system combines together many indicators of drowsiness and alertness into a composite drowsiness score. Advisory and warning messages are presented to the driver and supplemental notifications to fleet management are also supported. This Phase II proposal provides a work plan for completing the development and commercialization of the system. The required tasks include machine vision eye and head tracking software development, continued algorithm development to detect behaviors of interest and combine them into a composite drowsiness score, development of an appropriate human machine interface, porting of algorithm and display software to run on Transecurity’s DriveVision pro on-board safety system, modifying Transecurity’s DriveMetrix software to include the drowsiness data into the immediate supervisor notification, driver risk scoring, and driver coaching functionalities, and testing the system in a sizable field operational test involving several real operating carriers. The impact of the DDMS on fleet management, safety supervisors, and drivers will also be assessed and reported.