In-car face biometrics can help stop sleepy, distracted drivers from crashing

AI chatbots are turning out to be dubious companions, but automated systems for monitoring drivers’ alertness could turn out to be welcome travelling companions. Automakers are integrating biometrics into the cabin as a safety measure to cut down on deadly crashes caused by drowsiness or distracted driving. Refinements are needed, but drivers, on the whole, seem happy to have the biometric systems.

Most Subaru drivers like face monitoring system

Drivers don’t want to fall asleep at the wheel. So says data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which shows that most Subaru owners whose cars come equipped with the company’s DriverFocus system keep it switched on – because it makes them feel safer.

A blog from the IIHS says, in a survey of 3,500 drivers of Subaru models with the biometric monitoring feature, 9 out of ten use it “most or all of the time,” and a majority say they want it in the next vehicle they purchase.

Subaru’s DriverFocus uses an in-cabin camera to detect signs of distraction and drowsiness, which are major causes of accidents. Are the driver’s eyes open? Are they directed at the road? Monitoring these factors can help avoid crashes, and the 4,000 U.S. road fatalities in 2023 that were attributed to distracted or drowsy driving.

The DriverFocus system is among an array of “attention support features” that are finding their way into drivers’ cars. Some analyze steering patterns and lane deviations. Others are strictly based on face biometrics.

“We do a lot of things behind the wheel almost unconsciously, without thinking that they’re unsafe,” says IIHS Research Scientist Aimee Cox, who led the research. “But those seemingly benign actions can pull our attention away from the road and increase the risk of crashing.”

Ford publishes patents for ultrawideband radar, facial recognition

Ford is among automakers exploring such systems. The company has published a new patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) outlining an idea for an in-cabin biometric system using ultrawideband radar, and another for a facial recognition system.

In the first, “a plurality of radar data streams from a respective plurality of ultrawideband (UWB) radars in a passenger compartment of a vehicle, generate a combined radar data stream by averaging the radar data streams together, measure a biometric characteristic of an occupant of the passenger compartment based on the combined radar data stream, and actuate a component of the vehicle based on the biometric characteristic.”

Language in the facial recognition patent is similar.

While driver safety monitoring is an application, Ford Authority says the possibilities for biometrics go far beyond that: it “could be used to start the vehicle or activate certain features, and could be tailored specifically from user to user, based on their own unique preferences.”

Make alerts less annoying by going haptic

Some drivers prefer not to have biometric monitoring turned on. According to IIHS, a small percentage of their Subaru drivers clicked the system off. But even then, complaints were more about detail than core function: “alerts were annoying and too frequent, and most drivers reported that they sometimes received false alarms when they weren’t actually drowsy or distracted.”

Other complaints addressed false alarms when performing normal actions, like changing lanes or adjusting radio controls. IIHS cites separate research suggesting that “shifting from audible warnings to haptic alerts like steering wheel vibrations makes drivers less likely to find them annoying.”

Up-up-down-down-left-right-open: handle code unlocks biometric entry

Stellantis is also pursuing biometrics patents for its vehicles. Mopar Insiders says the automaker has been granted a USPTO patent for “a system and method for accessing a vehicle with a biometric key.” That method would be face biometrics, which would authenticate a driver and unlock the car through facial recognition.

The system, however, is not frictionless. Per the blog, “the door handle acts as the activation point. If the person lifts the handle in a specific sequence – think three lifts, a pause, four lifts, another pause, then two more lifts – the system wakes up. Once activated, the camera takes a picture of the person’s face and sends it to a controller, which compares it to stored images of preauthorized users.”

Stellantis imagines the system as useful in emergencies, when keys and phones are lost, and one has only their face, a sophisticated camera and a complex series of coded hand movements to save them.

Article Topics

automotive biometrics  |  biometric monitoring  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  Ford Motor Company  |  gesture recognition  |  patents