Driver fatigue detection using machine vision approach

Driver fatigue plays a vital role in a large number of accidents. In this paper, a real time, machine vision-based system is proposed for the detection of driver fatigue which can detect the driver fatigue and can issue a warning early enough to avoid an accident. Firstly, the face is located by machine vision based object detection algorithm, then eyes and eyebrows are detected and their count (four or less) is computed. By comparison of the calculated number of black spots, with a predefined value, which is four (Two eyes and two eye brows), for a particular time interval, driver fatigue can be detected and a timely warning can be issued whenever there will be symptoms of fatigue. The main advantage of this system is its fast processing time and very simple equipment. This system runs at about 15 frames per second with a resolution of 320*240 pixels. This algorithm is implemented using MATLAB platform along with camera and is well suited for real world driving conditions since it can be non-intrusive by using a video camera to detect changes.