Volvo car can tell if you look tired

Next time you check your hair or make up in your car's vanity mirror, it might talk back; Volvo, the pioneer of the three-point seat belt, has developed a car that reacts when a driver looks tired or inattentive behind the wheel.

By placing a sensor on the dashboard to monitor where the driver is looking, their head position and angle and even how open their eyes are, the system is able to wake a driver who is falling asleep. If the driver fails to react, a function Volvo refers to as ‘Collision warning with full auto brake’ can bring the vehicle to stop.

How does it work?

Small LEDs illuminate the driver with infrared light, which is then monitored by a sensor on the dashboard. Infrared light is just outside the wavelengths that the human eye can see, which means that the person behind the wheel does notice it at all.

By monitoring eye movements, the car would be able to adjust both interior and exterior lighting to follow the direction in which the driver is looking. The car would also be able to adjust seat settings, for instance, simply by recognising the person sitting behind the wheel.

Such ‘Driver State Estimation’ technology paves the way for semi-autonomous cars of the future. Such a car would need to be able to determine for itself whether a driver was capable of taking control when the conditions for driving autonomously were no longer present. Driver sensor would help make this possible.