Study on Drowsy Driving Behavior from Driver Steering Pattern and Lane Offset Using Driving Simulator 2019-01-1438

Drowsiness has been one of the major reasons of road fatality over a decade because the effect of drowsiness is trying to shut down both mind and body. That means drivers are unable to completely control the car while trapped in an unconscious state. It will lead to a several number of casualties on road. In this research, two sets of people, partial sleep-deprivation and non-sleep-deprivation, are tested on the driving simulator. Two methods were used in this study to identify driver drowsiness. First, driving behavior focusing on steering pattern. And secondly, vehicle offset from the lane center. The tests were carried out on the designed scenarios in the Driving Simulator. The scenarios are such as following straight lane with vehicle along the road, following curve lane without other cars, car following on a single lane and following straight lane without other cars. From the results, there are significant results that can roughly separate drowsy driver from regular driver. The graph of both root mean square error with threshold or RMT and steering handling pattern can be interpreted that drowsy people perform worse than non-drowsy people. The result from both methods shows that drowsy people perform worse than non-drowsy people since all the average line of RMT are above the non-drowsy people. Among the three condition, car following, straight lane tracking and curve lane tracking, straight lane tracking has the most significant result. On the other hand, steering handling data shows a very interesting and unique results. The average steering handling frequency of the partial-sleep deprivation is almost twice from the non-sleep deprivation. In term of performance, the more the frequency of steering is shown, the worse driving efficiency will be.