Drowsiness Detection in Drivers Using Facial Feature Analysis

Drowsiness has been recognized as a leading factor in road accidents worldwide. Despite considerable research in this area, this paper aims to improve the precision of drowsiness detection specifically for long-haul travel by employing the Dlib-based facial feature detection algorithm. This study proposes two algorithms: a static and adaptive frame threshold. Both approaches utilize eye closure ratio (ECR) and mouth aperture ratio (MAR) parameters to determine the driver’s level of drowsiness. The static threshold method issues a warning when the ECR and/or MAR values reach specific thresholds. In this method, the ECR threshold is established at 0.15 and the MAR threshold at 0.4. The static threshold method demonstrated an accuracy of 89.4% and a sensitivity of 96.5% using 1000 images. The adaptive frame threshold algorithm uses a counter to monitor the number of consecutive frames that meet the drowsiness criteria before triggering a warning. Additionally, the number of consecutive frames required is adjusted dynamically over time to enhance detection accuracy and more accurately indicate a state of drowsiness. The adaptive frame threshold algorithm was tested using four 30 min videos, from a publicly available dataset achieving a maximum accuracy of 98.2% and a sensitivity of 64.3% with 500 images.