A Real-Time Driver Drowsiness Detection and Warning System Based on an Eye Blinking Rate

Every year many people lose their lives due to fatal road accidents around the world and drowsy driving is one of the primary causes of road accidents and deaths. The other causes of traffic accidents are due to human errors and/or due to mechanical failures. Driver fatigue is one of the leading causes of Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) in Pakistan. Numerous systems are invented that minimize the impact of these accidents. The research in this area began sixty years ago, to determine the drowsiness of driver using computer assisted techniques. In this paper, we have purposed a method that will detect the drowsiness of driver by its eye behavior, such as, eye blink rate and patterns. This paper presents a system for detecting driver drowsiness, based on analysis of the eyes. The system has the ability to adapt to any person, works in real driving conditions, under varying lighting and generating drowsiness index at every moment, which measures the wakefulness of the driver. In several experiments, the proposed system has shown excellent results regarding the objectives and the problems have been successfully overcome.