1 Introduction

90% of fatalities in car crashes in the United States are caused by human error and 10% of the total were due to driver drowsiness or distraction. Driver monitoring systems (DMS) as well as occupant status monitoring (OSM) are systems that track the condition and the position of the driver or the passengers. Today’s implementations predominantly use camera-based systems where the driver is illuminated via an Infrared LED (IR LED) to avoid blinding and glaring the driver. The reflection is than captured by an image sensor and the picture processed. During processing the system identifies facial position, eye movements, eye blinking repetition, dilation of the eyes and position of the driver in the seat like slumping down. Taking this data, and often applying AI mechanisms, a level of alertness of the driver can be defined and used to determine if the driver is attentive enough or is not paying, or possibly cannot pay enough attention to the road and traffic, due to his or her health condition. Depending on the alertness level the system can then create a visual or acoustic warning sign or vibration in the steering wheel or eventually slow down the car to increase driver engagement again.

As car safety institutions worldwide are defining and deploying guidance and mandatory requirements for driver monitoring systems, the market for camera based DMS and OMS systems is expected to grow to more than 50 million systems per year over the next five years.