Thermal Camera-based Driver Monitoring in the Automotive Scenario

Driver monitoring in the automotive scenario is a key task in preventing hazardous events, such as road accidents. To this purpose, driver monitoring systems aim at providing prompt assistance in case of anomalies, such as alterations of the driver’s psycho-physiological status. The driving performance may, indeed, be negatively affected by high levels of stress and workload, that might be caused by different factors.In this paper, a novel in-vehicle monitoring system to extract the skin temperature of a driver, as one of the main indicators of his/her psycho-physiological status, is proposed. Thermal imaging techniques and video processing algorithms are jointly employed to record and extract temperature-related information in a non-invasive and contactless way. Temperature variations detected on the subject’s face are regulated by the activity of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and represent, indeed, an important index of perceived stress levels. The feasibility of the proposed method is assessed both in simulated and real driving scenarios on the basis of experimental results.