Distraction, Drowsiness & Child Presence: Top 5 Features to Evaluate in a Driver Monitoring System9 Oct 2023 18:02
This guest contribution to Automoblog is courtesy of Paul Zubrinich, Chief Marketing Officer for Optalert, an Australian company that specializes in detecting drowsiness and other cognitive states in eyelid movements. In addition to supporting automakers as they improve their drowsiness detection systems in new vehicles, Optalert discovered the first non-invasive method to screen for obstructive sleep apnoea while the test subject is awake and is making progress in early screening of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurodegenerative conditions.
If you’re in the market for a new car, you have likely heard about driver monitoring systems (DMS). A DMS uses sensors and software to monitor the driver’s behavior and condition, helping to improve safety and performance. Some of these features are mature and reliable, while others are quite hit-and-miss.
Why Do Vehicles Have a DMS?
There are three broad drivers pushing driver monitoring systems into the market:
First, new regulation, especially in Europe, has mandated that cars must detect inattention, drowsiness, and other forms of driver impairment. There are also talks at the federal level in the United States of regulation around intoxication detection. It appears to be a growing frontier in safety regulation in automotive.
Second, autonomous vehicles are encountering numerous technical challenges and will likely take a lot longer to get right than many technology optimists initially predicted. As cars continue to be operated by humans, monitoring the driver’s state will make them safer.
Third, a lot of advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) features have annoyed drivers in recent years. For example, a colleague regularly tells me of an annoying lane-keeping assistance feature in his car that invasively pulls him back into the lane when he is consciously and purposefully changing lanes.
A catchphrase in the automotive industry is “DMS will save ADAS.” If a DMS could see he was perfectly alert and intentionally deciding to do something, the ADAS system could leave him alone. But if he was hurtling along at high speed in the rain, sleep-deprived, and visibly distracted looking at his phone, the ADAS could intervene more based on input from the DMS.
Driver Monitoring Features: Good, Bad & Clumsy
To some drivers, it might feel a bit paternalistic and restrictive to have software monitoring you as you drive. If this sounds like you, consider selecting a new vehicle with a DMS that has the option to disable certain features. Many automakers include a “Reduced alarm mode.” I’ve seen under the hood of many technologies at various trade shows and automotive industry events. Engineers are still ironing out a lot of kinks with these systems, but I’m confident that software updates and product recalls due to annoying false alerts will become more common in the next few years.
https://www.automoblog.net/top-features-driver-monitoring-system/
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