Experimental study on driver´s authority and attention monitoring

In this paper, experimental results on a driver´s operating characteristics are studied. Experimental setup is developed on a basis of a fairly restrictive driver assistance system supporting “blind spot”, “lane departure” detection and “following distance” sensing. The main goal is to determine the attention and authority level of the driver, who is controlling the technical system under different traffic situations. In dense freeway traffic the driver´s perception and reaction to the surrounding vehicles and the oncoming vehicles in the adjacent lanes were collected and interpreted. This research concentrates on the driver´s authority and predictability levels towards adaptive predictive active safety systems. By analyzing the driver´s skill, driving habits, capabilities and decisions, some unnecessary interventions of the advanced driver assistance systems to the driver´s authority may be eliminated and fun-to-drive or the driver´s autonomy behind the steering wheel may be maintained.