Volvo
Machines that can read faces? Machines that can tell if you’re falling asleep on the wheel?
With today’s technology, these have become less fantastic, especially since today’s motoring reality needs them now. According to traffic safety research and accident investigations undergone by the Volvo Group, vehicle problems and traffic environment are dwarfed by the human factor as the cause of motoring accidents. The Group claims that it actually accounts for 90 per cent of such mishaps; and research at Virginia Tech Transport Institute verifies this. The latter was even able to delve so far as to determine that the largest and most significant cause of accidents is inattentiveness due to distraction or tiredness.
Since tiredness is a common problem in people’s lives that is usually only solved with sleep, motorists are ill-equipped to deal with it once it hits them while on the road. When this happens, eyelids begin to droop and arm muscles relax, letting the vehicle drift into an accident. In short, people are usually powerless against the Sandman; but one arm of the Volvo Group wants to change all that.
In its bid against the apparent partnership between the Sandman and the Grim Reaper, Volvo Technology Transfer has tied up with an Australian company called Seeing Machines. This company is responsible for devising cutting-edge computerized technology that can recognize facial expressions as well as track head and eye movements.
The technology, derived from the results of research projects at the Australian National University, can be used for medical diagnosing, marketing, games and simulation – but Volvo is investing in Seeing Machines for the technology’s application in vehicle safety.
Currently, Seeing Machines has developed a small camera that can watch how a driver is doing. It measures the position of the head, eye movements and eyelid behavior and processes such data via a specific calculation program in order to interpret if whether the motorist is distracted or tired. The machine will then warn the driver once it finds it necessary to do so. It will keep him alert long enough until finally, he reaches a place where sleeping is safe to do.
