Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshiyuki Hatakeyama

Shinya Kawamata

Shoichi Hayasaka

Shintaro Yoshizawa

Yuichi Kumai

Osamu Ozaki

Yutaka Hirano

Edgar Yoshio Morales Teraoka

Hiroki Okamura

There is provided a device which detects sleepiness of a human being based on the opening and closing motion of an eyelid, in which an occurrence of sleepiness of a subject is detectable with accuracy more sufficient than before even for a subject who keeps from blinking intentionally when sleepiness increases. The inventive sleepiness detecting device comprises an eyelid state detector, detecting an opened/closed state of an eyelid of a subject; a transition time interval detector, detecting sequentially a time interval between transitions between an opened state and a closed state of the eyelid; an eyelid characteristic amount computer, computing an eyelid opening/closing characteristic amount from time series data of the time intervals; a sleepiness judging device, judging that the subject feels sleepiness when the eyelid opening/closing characteristic value falls below a first threshold value or exceeds beyond a second threshold value higher than the first threshold value.

Sleepiness detecting device

A device disclosure includes a unit that measures an eye potential; and a unit that sets a threshold coefficient based on a frequency characteristic value of eye potential differential values and sets an upper threshold and a lower threshold based on a number obtained by multiplying a standard deviation of the eye potential differential values by the threshold coefficient, and detects a change in the eye potential differential values as the eyeblink waveform wherein the change occurs in the time-series data on the eye potential differential values either when the eye potential differential value becomes larger than the upper threshold and, after that, changes from the upper threshold to the lower threshold within a predetermined time or when the eye potential differential value becomes smaller than the lower threshold and, after that, changes from the lower threshold to the upper threshold within the predetermined time.

Eyeblink detection device

A vehicle information display device including: a subject detecting sensor, that detects a first object positioned in a surrounding area of the vehicle and a second object different from the object; a display portion, that has a display area that displays an object mark corresponded to the object to emphatically display the object detected by the subject detecting sensor, and displays the second object mark so that when a number of the second objects that are in the vicinity of the detected first object and are detected by the subject detecting sensor is large, the emphasizing degree of the vertical component of the second object mark is suppressed in comparison with the emphasizing degree of the vertical component of the first object mark when the number of the second objects is small or no second object is detected.

Vehicle information display device and vehicle information display method

An information display device for a vehicle includes a object detection sensor that detects a target object positioned around a host vehicle, and a display unit that displays a first object marker which is displayed so as to surround the target object detected by the object detection sensor on a display area positioned between a driver of the host vehicle and the target object, and in a case where a distance from the host vehicle to the target object is long, that displays a second object marker with a degree of emphasis of the vertical components suppressed compared to a degree of emphasis of the vertical components of the first object marker in a case where the distance from the host vehicle to the target object is short.

Information display device for vehicle and information display method for vehicle

A device for detecting the sleepiness of a driver driving a vehicle is designed to determine if the resetting of threshold values for detection of sleepiness is performed based upon its necessity when an interruption of the driving occurs. The inventive device computes successively an eyelid opening/closing characteristic amount from time intervals between transitions between an opened state and a closed state of an eyelid detected successively; sets threshold values using the eyelid opening/closing characteristic amounts obtained in a predetermined period; and judges the driver feels sleepiness when the eyelid opening/closing characteristic amount deviates from a range defined with the threshold values. In restarting the driving after its interruption, it is judged if the resetting of the threshold values is to be performed based on the driver's condition till then, and the resetting is performed, using eyelid opening/closing characteristic amounts obtained after the restarting of the driving.

To provide a vehicle information transmitting device capable of transmitting information associated with danger at a periphery of the own vehicle in a manner intuitively understandable by the driver. In the present embodiment, when a dangerous direction is the left or the right, a display position of an own vehicle state display figure is changed from a display position in an initial state to a display position on the same side as the dangerous direction. If the dangerous direction is on the front, the display position of the own vehicle state display figure is changed from the display position in the initial state to a display position on an upper side. When a dangerous target is detected, a display area of the own vehicle state display figure is changed to a display area greater than the display area in the initial state.

Vehicle information transmitting device

A vehicle information display device including: a subject detecting sensor that detects an object in a surrounding area of a host vehicle; and a display portion that is configured to have a display area for displaying a display frame corresponded to the object in a mode of surrounding the object, and for emphatically displaying the object detected by the subject detecting sensor, and the display frame is displayed in a manner of that the emphasizing degree of an enlarging part is less than that of a non-enlarging part, when the display frame enlarges as the host vehicle moves.

A vehicle information transmitting apparatus transmits information to a driver by optical stimulus, and determines whether or not to change a mode of the stimulus on the basis of at least one of information about the driver, an operation input, and a behavior of a vehicle, the information about the driver, the operation input, and the behavior being obtained after the transmission of the information. The vehicle information transmitting apparatus may change the mode of the stimulus when determining that the information is not considered by the driver. Further, the vehicle information transmitting apparatus may change the mode of the stimulus when determining that a cause that the information is not considered resides in the mode of the stimulus.

Vehicle information transmitting apparatus

A vehicle information transmission device includes: a display device that displays light in a first mode at a position of a vehicle body, at which visual recognition of a certain object is prompted, when the visual recognition is prompted and that displays light in a second mode different from the first mode on the vehicle body when the visual recognition is not prompted or when the visual recognition is prompted; and a control unit that adjusts light in the second mode on the basis of light in the first mode when the visual recognition is prompted.

Vehicle information transmission device

To provide a vehicle information transmitting device capable of resolving the bothersome that occurs when the light is strong. According to the present embodiment, a plurality of light sourcesis arranged in an array form of plural rows or plural columns in the light source panelso that light can be irradiated in a horizontal direction (right and left direction) and vertical direction (height direction, up and down direction). The light source panelincludes a diffusion plateand a shaft memberfor entirely or partially adjusting the transmitting degree (blurring degree of light) of the light of the light sourcein association with the arrangement position of the light source, and a plurality of springsthat plays the role of a fail safe for maintaining the distance between the light sourceand the diffusion platein a maximum state at the time of malfunctioning.

A vehicle information transmission device prompts recognition of a certain object. The vehicle information transmission device prompts recognition of a position different from a position of the certain object.

Disclosed is a biological body state assessment device capable of accurately assessing an absentminded state of a driver. The biological body state assessment device first acquires face image data of a face image capturing camera, detects an eye open time and a face direction left/right angle of a driver from face image data, calculates variation in the eye open time of the driver and variation in the face direction left/right angle of the driver, and performs threshold processing on the variation in the eye open time and the variation in the face direction left/right angle to detect the absentminded state of the driver. The biological body state assessment device assesses the possibility of the occurrence of drowsiness of the driver in the future using a line fitting method on the basis of an absentminded detection flag and the variation in the eye open time, and when it is assessed that there is the possibility of the occurrence of drowsiness, estimates an expected drowsiness occurrence time of the driver.

Biological body state assessment device including drowsiness occurrence assessment

Provided are a physiological condition estimation device and a vehicle control device capable of preventing an error in the operation of an apparatus, such as a vehicle, and improving the safety of the operation of the apparatus. The physiological condition estimation device includes an eye-open time acquiring unit that acquires the eye-open time of the driver, a variation calculating unit that acquires a variation in the eye-open time acquired by the eye-open time acquiring unit, and a drowsiness predicting unit that determines the physiological condition of the driver on the basis of the variation in the eye-open time acquired by the variation calculating unit. In this way, since the physiological condition is determined on the basis of the variation in the eye-open time, it is possible to detect a slight reduction in the arousal level and estimate a significant reduction in the arousal level to a value that will cause an error in the driving of the vehicle in the future.

Physiological condition estimation device and vehicle control device

The object is to provide a drowsiness detecting device for detecting strong drowsiness to become a dozing state. A drowsiness detecting device comprises a sympathetic parameter acquiring unit for acquiring a parameter concerning a sympathetic nerve of a subject, a parasympathetic parameter acquiring unit for acquiring a parameter concerning a parasympathetic nerve of the subject, a sympathetic increase determining unit for determining whether the sympathetic parameter is greater than a sympathetic threshold or not, and a drowsiness determining unit for determining drowsiness of the subject according to an increase/decrease relationship between the sympathetic and parasympathetic parameters when the sympathetic increase determining unit determines that the sympathetic parameter is greater than the sympathetic threshold.

Sleepiness judging device

A device for judging a degree of awakening and a method for judging a degree of awakening which can more reliably detect weak sleepiness of people in action. The device for judging a degree of awakening in accordance with the present invention comprises a heartbeat sensor for acquiring a heartbeat signal from a driver and an ECU for detecting sleepiness of the driver by processing the heartbeat signal. In the ECU, a heartbeat signal preprocessing section for acquiring a heartbeat period time series from the heartbeat signal, a feature amount extracting section for acquiring a heartbeat fluctuation low frequency component power from the heartbeat period time series, a sleepiness detecting section for judging whether sleepiness occurs in the driver or not according the heartbeat fluctuation low frequency component power, a stimulus timing setting section for setting a timing for imparting a stimulus for removing sleepiness to the driver according to the heartbeat fluctuation low frequency component power, and a sleepiness removing stimulus output section for imparting the stimulus to the driver at thus set timing.

Growing community of inventors

Fuji, Japan

Yoshiyuki Hatakeyama