A non-rigid motion estimation algorithm for yawn detection in human drivers

Abstract

This work focuses on the estimation of possible fatigue or drowsiness by detecting the occurrence of yawns with human drivers. An image processing technique has been proposed to analyse the deformation occurring on driver's face and accurately identify the yawn from other types of mouth opening such as talking and singing. The algorithm quantifies the degree of deformation on lips when a driver yawns. The image processing methodology is based on study of non-rigid motion patterns on 2D images. The analysis is done on a temporal sequence of images acquired by a camera. A shape-based correspondence of templates on contours of a particular region is established on the basis of curvature information. The shape similarity between the contours is analysed, after decomposing with wavelets at different levels. Finally, the yawn is correlated with fatigue-induced behaviour of drivers on a simulator.