Patent ID: 7027621
Filing Date: 2006-04-11
Classification: B60K,G06K

Abstract:
1. A system for monitoring and assessing the condition of human operators, comprising: an infrared camera, said camera providing passive thermal image sequences of the face of an operator; means for spatially orienting said face on each image by extracting a plurality of features from each image in said thermal image sequences with reference to a bilateral symmetry of the face with respect to each of said plurality of features said spatially oriented face being divided into a grid of cells, each said thermal image recording a temperature for each cell on said grid; means for analyzing said sequence of thermal images, said analysis being able to determine variation in spatial orientation of said face and variation in temperature of each cell in said grid and variation in temperature and position of said features on said face of said operator; means for using said analysis to assess a condition of said operator, said condition being defined with respect to performance of a task by said operator, said assessment having reference to data particular to said condition and task and being correlated with one or more of said variations determined by said analysis.