Eye Gaze Estimation Invisible and IR Spectrum for Driver Monitoring System

Abstract

Driver monitoring system has gained lot of popularity in automotive sector to ensure safety while driving. Collisions due to driver inattentiveness or driver fatigue or over reliance on autonomous driving features arethe major reasons for road accidents and fatalities. Driver monitoring systems aims to monitor various aspect of driving and provides appropriate warnings whenever required. Eye gaze estimation is a key element in almost all of the driver monitoring systems. Gaze estimation aims to find the point of gaze which is basically,” -where is driver looking”. This helps in understanding if the driver is attentively looking at the road or if he is distracted. Estimating gaze point also plays important role in many other applications like retail shopping, online marketing, psychological tests, healthcare etc. This paper covers the various aspects of eye gaze estimation for a driver monitoring system including sensor choice and sensor placement. There are multiple ways by which eye gaze estimation can be done. A detailed comparative study on two of the popular methods for gaze estimation using eye features is covered in this paper. An infra-red camera is used to capture data for this study. Method 1 tracks corneal reflection centre w.r.t the pupil centre and method 2 tracks the pupil centre w.r.t the eye centre to estimate gaze. There are advantages and disadvantages with both the methods which has been looked into. This paper can act as a reference for researchers working in the same field to understand possibilities and limitations of eye gaze estimation for driver monitoring system.