Driver monitoring using the in-vehicle camera

One of the possible ways to reduce the number of accidents in traffic is to track the driver’s condition. In this paper, a new driver monitoring algorithm, which operates on a video captured from the camera located in the instrument panel in the vehicle, is presented. The algorithm examines the presence of the driver’s head in each frame and checks whether the driver has unusually long-closed eyes, whether the driver looks sideways, and whether the driver’s head has dropped for a long time. The algorithm is tested using ten different videos recorded under different light conditions. The algorithm generally achieves high performance, while for some lighting conditions a certain algorithm upgrading would be necessary to maintain a high level of accuracy.