Accelerometer-based steering-wheel movement monitoring for drowsy-driving detection

Monitoring steering-wheel movements is a well-documented method of detecting driver fatigue and drowsiness. Current methods for monitoring steering-wheel movements are prohibitive for daily use owing to the high costs of implementation and the necessity for complex modifications to be made to accommodate the new setup. These limitations have confined potentially lifesaving drowsiness detection methods based on steering-wheel movements to laboratory and simulator settings. A new method was proposed in this study, which employed a triaxial accelerometer to provide a cost-effective, easy, and efficacious way to monitor steering-wheel movements without requiring any modifications to the existing vehicle setup. Simulations and experimental results showed that the accelerometer-measured rotation angles of the steering wheel were linearly correlated with the actual rotation angles of the steering wheel registered by the potentiometer (R2≈1; p < 0.001) and that the steering-wheel movements recorded were also strongly correlated with the actual steering-wheel rotation. The excellent agreement between the accelerometer-estimated steering-wheel rotation and the actual steering-wheel rotation suggests that accelerometers can be a useful tool to monitor the steering-wheel movements for the detection of drowsy driving. Because of its cost-effective nature, the proposed method could help to proliferate the practical deployment of individual drowsy detection.