Monitoring System for Movement of Driver’s Head

The paper proposes a robust monitoring system to detect abnormal movement of driver’s head. The LED light source is designed and placed behind the driver’s head. The CMOS sensor is used to acquire frames including the region around the driver’s head. The acquired frame is analysed by the proposed head movement monitoring algorithm. Any head movement will result in changes of the LED region. By analysing these changes, the monitoring algorithm can detect abnormal head movement and issue a warning signal correctly. The system is robust to violent illumination variation outside the vehicle and eye-sheltered effect from sunglasses. Software simulations are also given to demonstrate its effectiveness and robustness.