Ask HN: How would you design an alarm for sleeping bus drivers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How would you design an alarm for sleeping bus drivers?

3 pointsnyc1119 comments

There was an accident recently here in Turkey when the bus driver fell asleep. Several people died including the driver. This happens too frequently in the cut-throat industry of transportation. How would you design a system to trigger an alarm when the driver shows signs of falling asleep? What would you try to catch? His closing eyes? His nodding? Or something else?

View on HN

FitBit that starts beeping super loudly and vibrating when it thinks you're sleeping. The technology is already there and affordable, it just needs loud beeping.

This doesn't seem to be true. I wrote to FitBit and this is their answer: "... unfortunately the Fitbit trackers can't notify you when you are falling asleep. They have only silent alarms, which you can setup manually and reminders to move for every hour. The tracker vibrates on your wrist, reminding you to stand up and walk. For more information, please visit Silent Alarms, Reminders to Move."

There are different approaches, things like cameras, brain wave monitoring, etc. I would guess the ones that use heart rate would be the least expensive and easiest to retrofit. No idea how the different approaches perform though. Here's one that seems well suited for retrofit: http://www.plesseysemiconductors.com/products/warden/

https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/3349

Volvo seems to track head position: looking at the ceiling or floor is highly suspect.

Low tech : 3 colored buttons, that the driver has to press in a random order as showed in their dashboard at random intervals.

High tech: Face monitoring with computer vision to detect signs of sleep.

Those buttons sound like an unfortunate way to distract a driver.

This system is used in trains.

Where the driver is interacting with many fewer other vehicles and has fewer demands on his or her attention.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com