Recognizing Distractions for Assistive Driving by Tracking Body Parts

Busy life as well as the prevalence of infotainment is increasingly making people more occupied even during tasks that require serious attention. One such task is driving and at the same time getting involved in activities that may distract drivers cognitively from watching the road and cause fatal accidents. This paper presents a method that is capable of monitoring different types of distractions, such as talking and texting on cell phone, casual eating, and operating cabin equipment while driving, so that a driver can be assisted to remain cautious on the road. The proposed method automatically detects and tracks fiducial body parts of a driver from video captured by a camera mounted on the front windshield inside a vehicle. Relative…