Rainbow Rare Earths Phalaborwa project shaping up to be one of the lowest cost producers globally. Watch the video here.
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SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSESSING AROUSAL LEVEL OF DRIVER OF VEHICLE THAT CAN SELECT MANUAL DRIVING MODE OR AUTOMATED DRIVING MODE
An apparatus assesses an arousal level of a driver of a vehicle. The apparatus includes a processor and a memory storing a computer program, which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform operations. The operations include acquiring personal data of the driver, which are detected by one or more sensors when the vehicle is traveling. The operations also include developing, by machine learning with the acquired personal data, a model for estimating an arousal level to personalize the model to the driver, and determining the arousal level of the driver based on the personalized model.
[0022] However, there is a problem in that sufficient precision may not be obtained because in general the physiological information widely varies due to individual differences. For example, in the method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-181020 , the sleepiness of the driver is estimated to become higher, that is, the arousal level is estimated to become lower as the eye opening ratio, which is the opening magnitude of the eye of the driver, becomes lower. However, because the driver who habitually opens his/her eye widely and the driver who does not are present, the arousal level of all the drivers may not be estimated precisely based on the eye opening ratio that uses the same reference. Similarly, in the method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2016-38768 , the arousal level is estimated by using the heart rate information or the brain waves of the driver. However, the precision of those pieces of physiological information related to the autonomic nervous system and the central nervous system more widely varies due to individual differences than the eye opening ratio. Accordingly, in order to precisely estimate the arousal level by using the physiological information of the driver, an estimation method that absorbs variations of the physiological information due to individual differences is requested.
[0064] As illustrated in Fig. 1 , the arousal level estimation device 10 includes the vehicle behavior detection unit 11, the first arousal level recognition unit 12, the arousal level estimation unit 15, the physiological information detection unit 16, and the second arousal level recognition unit 17. Note that the arousal level (sleepiness) of the driver that is estimated by the arousal level estimation device 10 is decided as any one of five levels of level 1 to level 5, for example. For example, level 1 indicates "not sleepy state", and level 2 indicates "slightly sleepy state". Level 3 indicates "sleepy state", and level 4 indicates "fairly sleepy state". Level 5 indicates "very sleepy state".
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=2020054264A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20200220&DB=&locale=en_EP#
[0096] In this embodiment, the physiological feature extraction unit 171 includes one or more feature extraction units and extracts at least one or more features that indicate the physiological state of the driver. For example, as illustrated in Fig. 4 , the physiological feature extraction unit 171 has a face image extraction unit 181, an eye opening ratio detection unit 182, an eye opening ratio feature extraction unit 183, an eye blink detection unit 184, an eye blink feature extraction unit 185, a head position detection unit 186, a head position feature extraction unit 187, a respiratory sound detection unit 188, a respiration feature extraction unit 189, a heart rate fluctuation detection unit 190, a heart rate fluctuation feature extraction unit 191, a blood pressure fluctuation detection unit 192, a blood pressure fluctuation feature extraction unit 193, a body movement detection unit 194, and a body movement feature extraction unit 195.
[0097] For example, the physiological feature extraction unit 171 uses the face image extraction unit 181 to the head position feature extraction unit 187 and may thereby extract an eye opening ratio feature, an eye blink feature, or a head position feature, which is related to the visual system physiological information of the driver, from an image which is photographed by the in-vehicle camera 161 and includes the driver, as the physiological information feature. Specifically, the face image extraction unit 181 consecutively acquires the image data from the in-vehicle camera 161 and extracts a face image region of the driver from the image data. The eye opening ratio detection unit 182 extracts the image region of the eye from the face image region extracted by the face image extraction unit 181, thereafter detects the upper and lower eyelids, and detects the eye opening ratio that indicates the opening degree of the eyelids, that is, the eye from the shapes of the eyelids. The eye opening ratio feature extraction unit 183 calculates an eye opening ratio feature, which is the average value, standard deviation, maximum value, minimum value, or the like of the eye opening ratio in a prescribed unit time, from the fluctuation pattern in the eye opening ratio that is detected by the eye opening ratio detection unit 182. Further, the eye blink detection unit 184 extracts the image region of the eye from the face image region extracted by the face image extraction unit 181, thereafter detects the upper and lower eyelids, and detects a blink (eye blink) from the movement of the upper and lower eyelids. The eye blink feature extraction unit 185 calculates an eye blink feature, which is the average value, standard deviation, or the like of the eye blink frequency or the eye blink time in a prescribed unit time. In addition, the head position detection unit 186 detects the fluctuation pattern in the head position of the driver based on the position in the image in the face image region extracted by the face i
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A skim read of these closely dated and similarly described Patents (Below) makes me wonder if this is an example of what Gill Pratt meant when he said Guardian for ALL ?
PANASONIC IP MAN CO LTD 2020-02-20
SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSESSING AROUSAL LEVEL OF DRIVER OF VEHICLE THAT CAN SELECT MANUAL DRIVING MODE OR AUTOMATED DRIVING MODE
[0064] As illustrated in Fig. 1 , the arousal level estimation device 10 includes the vehicle behavior detection unit 11, the first arousal level recognition unit 12, the arousal level estimation unit 15, the physiological information detection unit 16, and the second arousal level recognition unit 17. Note that the arousal level (sleepiness) of the driver that is estimated by the arousal level estimation device 10 is decided as any one of five levels of level 1 to level 5, for example. For example, level 1 indicates "not sleepy state", and level 2 indicates "slightly sleepy state". Level 3 indicates "sleepy state", and level 4 indicates "fairly sleepy state". Level 5 indicates "very sleepy state".
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=2020054264A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20200220&DB=&locale=en_EP#
TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD 2020-02-13
DRIVING CONSCIOUSNESS ESTIMATION DEVICE
[0057] The driving readiness degree is a level of readiness for the driving by the driver. The driving readiness degree is also called “readiness”. As the driving consciousness and the degree of readiness of the driver against the traveling environment of the host vehicle increase, the value of driving readiness degree increases. As an example, the driving readiness degree here can be divided into five stages such as Low (low), Medium Low (slightly low), Medium (normal), Medium High (slightly high) and High (high). The way of expressing the driving readiness degree is not particularly limited, and may be expressed by a numerical value or may be divided into plural stages.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20200213&CC=US&NR=2020047765A1&KC=A1#
Adding Denso to Toyota and Panasonic emerging list of similarly described Patents around the subject of Driver Arousal.
PANASONIC IP MAN CO LTD 2020-02-20
SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSESSING AROUSAL LEVEL OF DRIVER OF VEHICLE THAT CAN SELECT MANUAL DRIVING MODE OR AUTOMATED DRIVING MODE
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=2020054264A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20200220&DB=&locale=en_EP#
TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD 2020-02-13
DRIVING CONSCIOUSNESS ESTIMATION DEVICE
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20200213&CC=US&NR=2020047765A1&KC=A1#
DENSO 2020-01-09
AROUSAL LEVEL DETERMINATION DEVICE
An arousal level determination device, which determines an arousal level of a driver driving a vehicle, includes a detection part and a determination part. The detection part is configured to detect an amount of body movement indicating a magnitude of movement of a body of the driver. The determination part is configured to determine the arousal level of the driver. The determination part determines that the driver is in an initial stage of decline in the arousal level when the amount of body movement has a decreasing trend.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/description?CC=US&NR=2020008732A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20200109&DB=&locale=en_EP#