Eye-gaze Technology that Detects Whether You’re Fit to Drive
January 18, 2008
The U.S. Department of Transportation says nearly 45,000 highway deaths that occur each year happen when vehicles leave the road.
In other words, drivers are too often distracted by cell phones, adjusting audio controls, or turning the heat and air conditioning up and down.
That is the primary reason automotive technology companies like DENSO International are continuing to develop revolutionary haptic, or sense of touch, vehicle systems that reduce the amount of time a driver’s eyes have to leave the road.
In addition, the company’s new eye-gaze technology will soon store not only patterns of driver’s eye movements, but may also monitor whether an individual is looking at the things they’re supposed to see while driving’for instance, wayward pedestrians, driver information signs and vehicles moving erratically in front of you.
DENSO has already unveiled a system that gets driver’s attention with cold blasts of air to the neck and loud warning buzzers if it detects eye closure for more than a half-second.
But the system may soon be further enhanced to completely shut a vehicle down if it determines a driver’s eyes are too blurry to drive, an obvious sign of some sort of impairment.
Eye Gaze Project Leader, Dr. Naoki Fukaya, Ph. D. put the amazing system on display for journalists recently during the press preview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
This research and report was the latest in a series of articles published by BuyingAdvice.com, a consumer advice and price quote web site that provides one of the most current and comprehensive insights into the automotive market today.
