For anyone that has ever found themselves feeling drowsy while driving, Jaguar Land Rover is set to unveil some machines that could stop drivers falling asleep at the wheel.
The marque is working with Intel and Seeing Machines to develop a cutting-edge Driver Monitor System (DMS) that follows the face and eyes of the driver to cut down drowsy or distracted driving.
DMS is set to be unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in a Jaguar F-Type prototype on the Intel stand.
It uses sensors, located in the dashboard, to monitor the driver’s attention by detecting eye and facial movements. This identifies if the driver’s attention has wandered, whether that’s due to distraction or drowsiness.
The system also understands the state of the driver when operating in real world conditions, considering things like bright sunlight and whether or not the driver is wearing sunglasses.
Vice president of Seeing Machines Nick Langdale-Smith said: “The algorithm we have developed for DMS has the potential to seamlessly enable a host of safety and autonomous driving features and reduce the potential for accidents caused by the driver not paying attention. DMS is unique because it is the only driver monitoring system that can achieve this even if the driver is wearing shades, or in full sunshine.”
To give DMS the processing power that it needs, Seeing Machines teamed up with Intel who, in turn, put hardware based on its Intel Core i7 chips into the F-Type prototype.
Engineering director at Jaguar Land Rover Dr Wolfgang Ziebart is hopeful that the attention-monitoring technology could go on to improve road safety. Should it find that the driver’s attention has moved away from the road, DMS could alert them to hazards more quickly.
It could also be used to improve the settings in the car’s safety systems, such as Autonomous Emergency Braking. This could be done by getting the car to brake sooner once DMS has realised that the driver is not paying attention to the road ahead.
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