Dec. 12, 2018
The newest cars will use the eyes of drivers to do a lot, writes Colin Barnden in EETimes. Coming soon to a car near you is eye tracking.
In addition to body and head position, driver monitoring systems (DMS) will track and measure the eyelids — real-time changes in blink frequency, duration, and blink velocity — to accurately measure driver fatigue.
By monitoring the pupils and using sophisticated algorithms, the DMS can assess eye gaze and determine precisely where the driver is looking.
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Starting early next decade, DMS will also act as an advanced biometric authentication system, taking measurements of the face and eyes to confirm driver ID before starting the vehicle.
Precision eye-gaze tracking also enables eye-gaze control of the instruments. The driver can interact with and adjust many of the systems in the car — phone, AC, audio, or navigation — just by looking at icons on the head-up display.
In addition, eye tracking technology would be used to try to make driving safer by monitoring how distracted drivers are. Using a concept best described as “near gaze/far gaze,” eye-tracking software would monitor how long the driver’s gaze was diverted from the road ahead while reading text messages, and would progressively blur the information.
The driver can read information from their phone directly from the windshield, but only for a few seconds at a time. From a safety perspective, the driver’s direct field of view never leaves the road ahead — what changes is the focus of their gaze.
