EYE OPENER: A VEHICLE OPERATOR VIGILANCE MONITOR SYSTEM

DESCRIPTION: (Verbatim from the Applicant's Abstract) Driver vigilance lapses are a major contributor to motor vehicle accidents which often result in closed-head injuries , spinal cord transection, and other major medical traumata with high degrees of morbidity and mortality. At present there are no practical means of monitoring driver vigilance and of providing arousal signal feedback as a counter-measure to vigilance lapses. In Phase-I, we will test the capability of our technique for measuring eyelid muscle tension and movement in sleep to predict attentional and behavioral lapses in subjects performing a driver simulation task. These results will be used to inform the Phase II development of a commercial product, called the Eye Opener, which could be used in a wide variety of vehicle operation applications including personal automobiles, commercial trucks, railroad trains, seagoing cargo vessels, and airplanes. In Phase Ill, the product will be brought into production by in-house manufacturing and marketed either directly and/or through consortium or contractual arrangements with the electronic technology and automotive industries. In addition to providing the public with a practical means of accident prevention, the research will contribute to the basic and applied science of sleep neurobiology by focusing attention on the dynamics of a long-neglected and obviously important structure, the human eyelid. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE