Driver's Drowsiness Detection Through Computer Vision: A Review

Drowsiness and sleepiness of driver is an important cause of road accident on expressways, highways, and motorways. These accidents not only results in economic loss but may also in physical injuries, which could result permanent disability or even death. The aim of this research is to minimize this cause of road accidents. Safe driving requirement is unavoidable and to attain this, driver’s drowsiness detection system is to be incorporate in vehicles. Drowsiness detection using vehicle-based, physiological, and behavioral change measurement system is possible with embedded pros and cons. Advancements in the field of image processing and development of faster and cheaper processors direct researches to focus on behavioral change measurement system for drowsiness detection. Computer vision based drowsiness detection is possible by closely monitoring the drowsiness symptoms like eye blinking intervals, yawning, eye closing duration, head position etc. The presented paper deals with merits and demerits of the drowsiness symptoms measurement mechanism and computer vision based drowsiness detection systems. The conclusion of the research is that by designing a hybrid computer vision based drowsy driver detection system dependability achieved. The proposed system is non-intrusive in nature and helpful in attaining safer roads by limiting potential accidental threat due to driver drowsiness.