Search Results (147)

A novel facial landmark localization method, termed TSDM, is proposed by integrating T-shaped features with the Supervised Descent Method (SDM). Facial landmark localization is critical for driver fatigue and attention detection in intelligent cockpits. Traditional methods lack accuracy and robustness in complex in-cabin environments such as varying illumination and head pose changes, while deep learning approaches are computationally expensive on resource-constrained vehicle platforms. The T-shaped feature well matches facial geometry and enhances feature representation. T-shaped features are selected via AdaBoost for robust face detection, and SDM is then used to locate 68 facial landmarks. Experiments show that TSDM achieves higher accuracy, lower false-positive rates, and better efficiency than traditional methods, including Haar and LBPH. It also exhibits stronger robustness and better real-time performance than several lightweight deep learning models (such as 3D-aware methods and SAN) on CPU-only platforms, while achieving comparable or higher localization accuracy. Experimental results show that TSDM achieves a face detection rate of 97.43% and a normalized mean error (NME) of 3.4% on standard datasets. The proposed method provides a practical solution for driver state monitoring in resource-limited vehicular environments. Full article

EEG-based driver fatigue detection faces three signal-level challenges: inter-subject spectral variability, coupled frequency–spatial–temporal dynamics that existing methods process independently, and dependence on a single labeling scheme. This paper presents DCAMNet, a lightweight CNN (12.3 K parameters) that addresses these challenges through three end-to-end blocks. An SE-driven dynamic convolution block adapts spectral sensitivity per sample via input-dependent kernel weighting—applied here for the first time to fatigue detection. A spatial convolution block encodes electrode-level cortical patterns, and a temporal attention block captures fatigue dynamics through windowed variance descriptors with group-wise attention scoring. DCAMNet was evaluated on SEED-VIG (PERCLOS labels) and MESD (reaction-time labels) under both subject-mixed and leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) protocols. Under LOSO cross-validation—the operationally relevant test that eliminates within-subject information leakage and simulates deployment on unseen drivers—DCAMNet achieved 85.43% accuracy on SEED-VIG with a 2.86-point advantage over the strongest baseline, and $79\pm 5$% accuracy on MESD with a 3-point advantage. As upper-bound estimates under the subject-mixed protocol, accuracy reached 97.47% (SEED-VIG) and 96.52% (MESD). With 1.35 ms inference latency on a standard GPU, the compact architecture suggests potential suitability for real-time embedded deployment, although on-device validation on representative automotive hardware remains necessary. Full article

Distracted and fatigue-related driving behaviors are major causes of road traffic accidents, creating an urgent need for reliable driver monitoring systems. Vision-based detection methods have garnered widespread attention due to their low cost of deployment and practical applicability. However, existing lightweight models often suffer from limited global contextual perception and insufficient preservation of fine details. Motivated by these challenges, this study introduces an improved distracted and fatigue-related driving behavior detection model, YOLOv12-LAD, built on the YOLOv12 architecture. The proposed framework integrates a Large Separable Kernel Attention module (LSKA) to enhance global contextual perception, an Adaptive Downsampling module (ADown) to mitigate information loss during feature compression, and a Dynamic Sampling module (DySample) to enable content-adaptive feature reconstruction and improve multi-scale behavior representation. Experimental results show that YOLOv12-LAD achieved 97.5% precision, 96.3% recall, and 98.4% mAP@50 with only 2.5 million parameters, 6.2 GFLOPs, and an inference speed of 249 FPS. Ablation studies, comparisons with representative models, cross-dataset evaluation, and real-vehicle tests further verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method. The proposed method demonstrates strong performance while maintaining computational efficiency, making it suitable for real-time vision-based driver monitoring applications. Full article

Given its substantial contribution to traffic accidents, one of the main goals of intelligent driver-assistance systems has become the detection and mitigation of driver fatigue to enhance driving safety and comfort. Among various approaches, vision-based facial analysis using deep learning has emerged as an effective and non-intrusive method for identifying driver drowsiness, as a key manifestation of fatigue. However, current drowsiness detection models do not account for demographic factors like gender, even though recent research has shown gender behavioral differences such as eye closure duration, blink frequency, yawning patterns, and facial muscle relaxation. In this paper, we present a fine-grained multi-stream transformer architecture that incorporates gender-awareness and shifted-windows attention for spatial feature fusion. Integrating gender embedding, by modulating the region-based features, allows the model to effectively learn gender-conditioned drowsiness features to minimize bias and diluted representations. Using the NTHU-DDD dataset, we evaluated two-stream and three-stream variants for gender-aware and gender-agnostic across three facial region contexts: the face region with a 20% margin, bare face region, and key facial regions (face, eyes, and mouth). A comprehensive ablation study was conducted to identify the most effective model setup. The results demonstrate that incorporating gender embedding improves detection performance, achieving an accuracy of 95.47% on the evaluation set. Moreover, using the proposed three-stream model (SWT-DD-3S) produced better results. Full article

Driver fatigue detection (DFD) in low-light nighttime driving environments is crucial for road safety, but it remains challenging due to degraded image quality and computational constraints. This paper proposes a real-time three-stage framework specifically designed for nighttime driver fatigue detection, integrating low-light image enhancement, joint face and facial landmark detection, and geometry-based fatigue judgment. In the initial stage, the framework utilizes the Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation (Zero-DCE) algorithm to improve the visual quality of input images under low-light conditions. Subsequently, a novel lightweight single-stage detector, You Only Look Once for Joint Face and Facial Landmark Detection (YOLOJFF), is introduced for efficient joint localization. Finally, fatigue judgment is performed in real-time by calculating the Eye Aspect Ratio (EAR) and Mouth Aspect Ratio (MAR) from the detected landmarks and using a sliding time window strategy. Experimental results demonstrate that the enhancement module significantly improves detection performance. The YOLOJFF model achieves a favorable balance, with 90.9% precision, 87.6% mean Average Precision (mAP), and 5.2 Normalized Mean Error (NME), while requiring only 3.7 million (M) parameters and running at 107.5 FPS. The proposed framework provides a robust and efficient solution for real-time DFD in nighttime scenarios. Full article

Background/Objectives: Neuromuscular fatigue (NMF) can impair manual dexterity and strength in healthcare professionals. Due to their high physical and cognitive workloads, physiotherapists (PTs) are particularly susceptible to NMF. This study investigated whether NMF, expressed as changes in manual dexterity and grip strength, occurs over a workday and across a workweek in PTs, and explored its relationship with stress and sleep quality. Methods: A total of 43 full-time PTs (25 female, mean age 37.72 ± 11.94 years) were recruited. Manual dexterity was assessed using the Functional Dexterity Test (FDT), while maximal grip strength (MGS) was measured by a hand dynamometer. Reliability was evaluated on a subgroup using Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC_3,1) and Standard Error of Measurement (SEM). Evaluations were conducted at the beginning and at the end of the work shift, on Monday and Friday. Subjective fatigue, perceived stress, and sleep quality were also recorded. Results: The FDT showed excellent intra-rater reliability (ICC > 0.93; SEM < 0.94 s). FDT performance was significantly slower on Friday evening compared to all other time points (p < 0.01), exceeding the minimal detectable change thresholds. No significant changes were observed in MGS across the week. Perceived stress was strongly correlated with fatigue levels on Monday (ρ = 0.731) and Friday (ρ = 0.612) evenings. Sleep quality and professional experience did not correlate with performance changes. Conclusions: PTs experience a significant decline in manual dexterity by the end of the workweek, suggesting an accumulation of NMF. While MGS remains stable, fine motor control is more sensitive to fatigue. Psychosocial stress appears to be a major driver of perceived fatigue in this population. Full article

As intelligent vehicle technologies evolve, reliable driver monitoring systems have become increasingly critical for ensuring the safety of human drivers and operational reliability. This paper proposes a novel visual computing framework for Driver Fatigue Monitoring Systems (DFMSs) based on hierarchical decoupling and scenario element analysis, specifically designed for intelligent transportation environments. By treating the monitoring system as an engineering-level embodied perception–decision system deployed within the vehicle, rather than a purely disembodied vision module, the framework decouples low-level algorithmic perception from application-layer decision logic, enabling a more granular evaluation of visual computing performance in real-world scenarios. We leverage Python 3.9-driven automated test case generation to simulate diverse environmental variables, improving testing efficiency by 50% over traditional manual methods. The system utilizes deep learning-based visual computing to achieve high-fidelity monitoring of eye closure (PERCLOS, EAR), yawning (MAR), and head pose dynamics, enabling real-time assessment of the driver’s state within the embodied system loop. Comparative benchmarking reveals that our framework significantly outperforms existing models in visual understanding accuracy, achieving perfect confidence scores (1.000) for eye closure and smoking behavior detection, while drastically reducing false positives in mobile phone usage detection (misidentification rate: 0.016 vs. 0.805). These results demonstrate that an embodied approach to visual perception enhances the robustness and reliability of driver monitoring systems deployed in real vehicles, providing a scalable pathway for the development of next-generation intelligent transportation safety standards. Full article

Car accidents remain a leading cause of death worldwide, with drowsiness and distraction accounting for roughly 25% of fatal crashes in Ecuador. This study presents a real-time driver monitoring system that uses computer vision and deep learning to detect fatigue, distraction, and emotions from facial expressions. It combines a MobileNetV2-based CNN trained on RAF-DB for emotion recognition and MediaPipe’s 468 facial landmarks to compute the EAR (Eye Aspect Ratio), the MAR (Mouth Aspect Ratio), the gaze, and the head pose. Tests with 27 participants in both real and simulated driving environments showed strong results. There was a 100% accuracy in detecting distraction, 85.19% for yawning, and 88.89% for eye closure. The system also effectively recognized happiness (100%) and anger/disgust (96.3%). However, it struggled with sadness and failed to detect fear, likely due to the subtlety of real-world expressions and limitations in the training dataset. Despite these challenges, the results highlight the importance of integrating emotional awareness into driver monitoring systems, which helps reduce false alarms and improve response accuracy. This work supports the development of lightweight, non-invasive technologies that enhance driving safety through intelligent behavior analysis. Full article

Drowsy driving and sudden medical emergencies are major contributors to traffic accidents, necessitating continuous, non-intrusive driver monitoring. Since current technologies often struggle to balance accuracy with practicality, this study presents the design, fabrication, and validation of a smart steering wheel prototype. The device integrates dry-contact electrocardiogram (ECG), photoplethysmography (PPG), and inertial sensors to facilitate multimodal physiological monitoring. The system underwent a two-stage evaluation involving a single participant: laboratory validation benchmarking acquired signals against medical-grade equipment, followed by real-world testing in a custom electric research vehicle to assess performance under dynamic conditions. Laboratory results demonstrated that the prototype captured high-quality signals suitable for reliable heart rate variability analysis. Furthermore, on-road evaluation confirmed the system’s operational functionality; despite increased noise from motion artifacts, the ECG signal remained sufficiently robust for continuous R-peak detection. These findings confirm that the multimodal smart steering wheel is a feasible solution for unobtrusive driver monitoring. This integrated platform provides a solid foundation for developing sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to enhance road safety by predicting fatigue and detecting adverse health events. Full article

Driver fatigue detection based on electroencephalography (EEG) signals has gained increasing attention for enhancing road safety. However, existing deep learning models often treat EEG data as generic time-series inputs, neglecting the inherent hierarchical and spatial–temporal structure of brain activity, which limits their interpretability and generalization. To address this, we propose a novel Residual Polynomial Network (RPN) that explicitly models the positive and negative activation patterns in EEG signals through a polarity-aware architecture. The RPN integrates polarity decomposition, residual learning, and hierarchical feature fusion to capture discriminative neurophysiological dynamics while maintaining model transparency. Extensive experiments are conducted on a real-world driving fatigue dataset using a subject-wise 10-fold cross-validation protocol. Results show that the proposed RPN achieves an average classification accuracy of 97.65%, outperforming conventional machine learning and deep learning baselines including SVM, KNN, DT, and LSTM. Ablation studies confirm the effectiveness of each component, and Sankey diagram analysis provides interpretable insights into feature-to-class mappings. This work not only advances the state of the art in EEG-based fatigue detection but also offers a more transparent and physiologically plausible deep learning framework for brain signal analysis. Full article

Driving fatigue poses a serious threat to road safety. To detect fatigue accurately and thereby improve vehicle safety, this paper proposes a novel semi-dry electrode with the ability to automatically replenish the conductive fluid for monitoring driving fatigue. This semi-dry electrode not only integrates the advantages of both wet and dry electrodes but also incorporates an automatic conductive fluid replenishment mechanism. This design significantly extends the operational lifespan of the electrode while mitigating the limitations of manual replenishment, particularly the risk of signal interference. Additionally, this study adopts a transfer learning approach to detect driving fatigue by analyzing electroencephalography (EEG) signals. The experimental results indicate that this method effectively addresses the issue of data sparsity in real-time fatigue monitoring, overcomes the limitations of traditional algorithms, shows strong generalization performance and cross-domain adaptability, and achieves faster response times with enhanced accuracy. The semi-dry electrode and transfer learning algorithm proposed in this study can provide rapid and accurate detection of driving fatigue, thereby enabling timely alerts or interventions. This approach effectively mitigates the risk of traffic accidents and enhances both vehicle and road traffic safety. Full article

Driver fatigue is a primary factor in traffic accidents and poses a serious threat to road safety. To address this issue, this paper proposes a multi-feature fusion fatigue detection method based on an improved YOLOv8 model. First, the method uses an enhanced YOLOv8 model to achieve high-precision face detection. Then, it crops the detected face regions. Next, the lightweight PFLD (Practical Facial Landmark Detector) model performs keypoint detection on the cropped images, extracting 68 facial feature points and calculating key indicators related to fatigue status. These indicators include the eye aspect ratio (EAR), eyelid closure percentage (PERCLOS), mouth aspect ratio (MAR), and head posture ratio (HPR). To mitigate the impact of individual differences on detection accuracy, the paper introduces a novel sliding window model that combines a dynamic threshold adjustment strategy with an exponential weighted moving average (EWMA) algorithm. Based on this framework, blink frequency (BF), yawn frequency (YF), and nod frequency (NF) are calculated to extract time-series behavioral features related to fatigue. Finally, the driver’s fatigue state is determined using a comprehensive fatigue assessment algorithm. Experimental results on the WIDER FACE and YAWDD datasets demonstrate this method’s significant advantages in improving detection accuracy and computational efficiency. By striking a better balance between real-time performance and accuracy, the proposed method shows promise for real-world driving applications. Full article

Enhancing road safety requires an accurate assessment of the drivers’ mental states. The Driver Status Test App (DSTA) is designed to detect conditions such as intoxication, fatigue, and cognitive impairment in simulated driving environments. Utilizing a dual-platform approach, it integrates mobile data collection via React Native and Firebase with web-based management using React and TypeScript. The mobile application conducts real-time assessments of cognitive and motor functions, while the web interface offers data visualization, trend analysis, and results exportation. DSTA evaluates driver impairment through metrics such as tracking, precision, balance, and choice reaction, producing an objective impairment score. These assessments are rapid, scalable, and adaptable for various research and regulatory purposes. The composite scoring framework differentiates between impaired and unimpaired states, making DSTA valuable for driver training programs, regulatory assessments, and autonomous vehicle research, where monitoring human factors is crucial. Full article

Driver fatigue is a critical factor contributing to traffic accidents. Therefore, real-time and accurate recognition of driver fatigue states holds significant importance. This paper proposes a novel driver fatigue detection method based on electroencephalogram (EEG) signals and an Interpretable Dynamic System Recurrent Network (IDSRN). The IDSRN integrates the temporal modeling capability of traditional Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) with the nonlinear function approximation advantages of polynomial networks, enabling effective extraction of nonlinear dynamic features from EEG signals. This study collected EEG data from drivers under varying fatigue states and constructed input vectors suitable for classification tasks through preprocessing and feature extraction. The extracted features were subsequently fed into the IDSRN model for training and testing, with comparative analyses conducted against traditional methods (e.g., SVM, CNN, and standard RNN). Experimental results demonstrate that the IDSRN outperforms other models in recognition accuracy (average: 92.3%), convergence speed, and robustness, significantly improving the efficacy of driver fatigue-state identification. Full article

Long COVID (LC), also known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 infection (PASC), is a heterogeneous and debilitating chronic disease that currently affects 10 to 20 million people in the U.S. and over 420 million people globally. With no approved treatments, the long-term global health and economic impact of chronic LC remains high and growing. LC affects children, adolescents, and healthy adults and is characterized by over 200 diverse symptoms that persist for months to years after the acute COVID-19 infection is resolved. These symptoms target twelve major organ systems, causing dyspnea, vascular damage, cognitive impairments (“brain fog”), physical and mental fatigue, anxiety, and depression. This heterogeneity of LC symptoms, along with the lack of specific biomarkers and diagnostic tests, presents a significant challenge to the development of LC treatments. While several biological abnormalities have emerged as potential drivers of LC, a causative factor in a large subset of patients with LC, involves reservoirs of virus and/or viral RNA (vRNA) that persist months to years in multiple organs driving chronic inflammation, respiratory, muscular, cognitive, and cardiovascular damages, and provide continuous viral antigenic stimuli that overstimulate and exhaust CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells. In this review, we (i) shed light on persisting virus and vRNA reservoirs detected, either directly (from biopsy, blood, stool, and autopsy samples) or indirectly through virus-specific B and T cell responses, in patients with LC and their association with the chronic symptomatology of LC; (ii) explore potential mechanisms of inflammation, immune evasion, and immune overstimulation in LC; (iii) review animal models of virus reservoirs in LC; (iv) discuss potential T cell immunotherapeutic strategies to reduce or eliminate persistent virus reservoirs, which would mitigate chronic inflammation and alleviate symptom severity in patients with LC. Full article