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Fatigue detection — where some driver-facing camera techs are headed

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Updated Aug 13, 2017
This illustration comes from a test of a feature in development as a potential part of the Driver-i platform from the Netradyne company, one of a few tech companies around the world either working on or already deploying facial-reading features aimed at detecting fatigue and alerting drivers and the back office.This illustration comes from a test of a feature in development as a potential part of the Driver-i platform from the Netradyne company, one of a few tech companies around the world either working on or already deploying facial-reading features aimed at detecting fatigue and alerting drivers and the back office.

Most of you will be familiar with the dual-camera (driver- and road-facing) techs that have been around quite a while now in various permutations in trucking. Most of you, furthermore, judging by our recent polling, are running with some kind of camera system in the truck, mostly the forward-facing variety. (See poll module at bottom for most recent results.)

I’ve lately been deep in a story that will air in our September issue, about the advancement in camera techs that are headed down a path toward, in various ways, what might seem to be a safety holy grail: being able to deliver observations of drivers and context around events where fatigue is at issue — and perhaps help the driver him/herself recognize them in the moment and take action where he/she might otherwise not.

At once, if I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a thousand times — a professional who makes his living behind the wheel is of necessity concerned with safety in a paramount way, and well knows when fatigue is beginning to present an issue! Granted its possible, however, to miss signs and symptoms, and given the growing penetration of lane-departure warnings and active-braking techs in newer trucks, I’m curious to hear from anyone among you with experience with monitoring technologies that deliver in-cab warnings. Have they ever saved your bacon or mostly been just a nuisance? Or, as goes such binaries most often in life, somewhere in between?

Where vehicle-to-vehicle/lane-orientation or driver-scanning techs are deployed with video, what’s been your experience, such as it may be? Mobile users can tap the image to weigh in with a voice message we may use in a future “mailbag” podcast. Desktop users, call 530-408-6423. Be sure to state your name and base location. Alternately, just send me an email at tdills [at] randallreilly.com.Where vehicle-to-vehicle/lane-orientation or driver-scanning techs are deployed with video, what’s been your experience, such as it may be? Mobile users can tap the image to weigh in with a voice message we may use in a future “mailbag” podcast. Desktop users, call 530-408-6423. Be sure to state your name and base location. Alternately, just send me an email at tdills [at] randallreilly.com.The image above illustrates a bit of what the somewhat new Netradyne company is working on, and Australia-headquartered Seeing Machines is already deploying, a two-cam system that purports to capture fatigue incidents, rumbling the seat and delivering other warnings in high-severity events. They’ve not gotten the ear of a great many trucking fleets in the U.S., but the American Trucking Associations recently added the company’s Guardian system to its featured product program.

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For now, you can read more about the company via this piece by Overdrive Editorial Director Max Heine in Overdrive Extra last year.

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