[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 197 (Wednesday, October 11, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60497-60498]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-26015]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

[Docket No. NHTSA-00-8064]


Drowsy Driver Detection Device Laboratory Validation

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice of Research Activity.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) is seeking 
partners who have the potential of providing non-contact eye closure 
monitoring sensors that can be used in a drowsy driver detection system 
field operational test. This notice describes criteria and tests that 
will be applied to each candidate sensor as part of the determination 
of fitness for inclusion in a field operational test. Manufacturers of 
devices that may meet these criteria are invited to submit a 
description of their device and detailed instructions on operations of 
the device to the US DOT.
    Each device must satisfy the following criteria: (1) The device 
must measure the percentage of eyelid closure over time (PERCLOS) and 
calculate PERCLOS 1 and/or PERCLOS 3 (one-minute and three-minute 
running averages of PERCLOS, respectively); (2) this measurement must 
occur in real time; (3) the device shall be unobtrusive and have no 
physical contact with the driver; (4) the device shall cause no harmful 
emissions of any type over the duration of the experiment; and (5) the 
device operation shall include no moving parts that could easily fail 
or that would require replacement, service, or routine maintenance by 
the driver.
    Any device that meets the above criteria may be included in a US 
DOT sponsored laboratory research study to evaluate the validity and 
reliability of its real-time drowsiness detection capability. Previous 
research has demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a drowsiness 
detection system with physical eyelid closure as a continuous input. A 
successful device should demonstrate that it can provide a valid 
measure of alertness during a vigilance task and that this detection is 
repeatable (reliability). In addition to being valid and reliable, this 
device needs to be practical, and must meet additional standards of 
high sensitivity and high specificity. Thus the device must detect all 
(or nearly all) fatigue events and fatigued vehicle operators (high 
sensitivity), without false alarms (high specificity.)
    The offeror understands that the device, if selected to participate 
in the laboratory validation study, will be provided on an as-is basis, 
requiring no further engineering or development and should be 
operationally ready. Second, the analysis that is derived from this 
laboratory research will be made publicly available and the device 
returned to the submittor, and third, the offeror shall in no way 
interfere with the procedures or personnel involved in conducting or 
managing the study. Furthermore:
    1. Previous studies and research involving the device may be 
disclosed and provided to the government to assist in evaluating the 
``fitness'' of the device for evaluation.
    2. Selection to participate in the laboratory validation study will 
NOT constitute an endorsement of the device by the federal government.
    3. A small budget shall exist to ensure the appropriate hookup of 
the device to the experimental apparatus.
    4. Involvement does not constitute a promise of future relations 
with the federal government.
    The devices will be tested in a laboratory in a double blind 
testing methodology. Results will be sent back to manufacturer for 
interpretation. The US DOT is only interested in testing devices that 
are operationally ready, not devices under development.

DATES: Submit device descriptions on or before November 27, 2000.

ADDRESSES: All proposals should refer to Docket No. NHTSA-00-8064 and 
be submitted to Docket Management, Room PL-401, 400 7th Street, SW, 
Washington, D.C. 20590. Docket hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday 
through Friday. Proposals may also be sent by electronic submission. 
The electronic submission procedure is described in the Docket 
Management section of the DOT's web site: http://www.dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Rau, Office of Vehicle Safety 
Research, NHTSA, (202) 366-0418; or Mr. Robert Carroll, Office of 
Research and Technology, FMCSA, (202) 366-9109, 400 Seventh Street, 
SW., Washington, DC 20590-0001.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The DOT has created a program titled the Intelligent Vehicle 
Initiative (IVI). The goal of the IVI program is to increase safety on 
the nation's highways through the acceleration of the deployment of on-
vehicle safety devices. One of the primary focus areas of the IVI is 
(commercial) motor vehicle driver fatigue. Further information on the 
IVI program may be found on: www.its.dot.gov/ivi. Additionally, the DOT 
has the goal of reducing truck involved fatalities by 50% by the year 
2010. Additional information concerning DOT and commercial motor 
vehicle safety goals may be found on: www.fmcsa.dot.gov and 
www.nhtsa.dot.gov.
    Further, technical conferences were held in 1997 and 1999, to 
discuss scientific validation findings regarding PERCLOS and other eye 
activity measures of alertness, and the status of efforts to develop 
in-vehicle sensors to continuously measure PERCLOS. The conferences 
were the primary focus of U.S. DOT-sponsored research over the past 
decade demonstrating the validity of PERCLOS as a measure of driver 
vigilance performance and also explored related psycho physiological 
alertness measures and alertness monitoring-related issues. The 
conferences reviewed potential and appropriate uses of PERCLOS data and 
ways to ensure the active participation and acceptance of drivers and 
management. The 1999 conference report, Ocular Measures of Driver 
Alertness: Technical Conference Proceedings (FHWA-MC-99-136) is 
available from National Technical Information Service (NTIS) (PB2000-
101412), telephone: (703) 605-6000.
    The vigilance task testing will be conducted in a controlled 
laboratory environment, similar to the previous work sponsored by NHTSA 
and FMCSA. A detailed description of this previous research, as well as 
the findings, can be obtained from the report entitled ``Evaluation of 
Techniques for Ocular Measurement as an Index of Fatigue and the Basis 
for Alertness Management'' published by the US DOT/NHTSA Report #DOT HS 
808-762 is also available from NTIS. A summary in the form of an FMCSA 
Technical Analysis Brief may be found on http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safetyprogs/research/researchpubs.htm.
    Each device will be tested on sleep deprived subjects who will 
remain awake for 42 hours, while working on a computerized test battery 
every two hours. The tests include a 20 minute psychomotor vigilance 
task (PVT) each two hours. PVT performance lapses refer to the times 
when a subject fails to respond to a task in a timely manner (i.e. 500 
msec.); lapses will be recorded for each minute for the entire 20 
minutes.
    PVT lapses will be used as the validation criteria variable because 
driving is a vigilance task requiring psychomotor reactions, and 
psychomotor vigilance has been previously validated in medical research 
to be very sensitive to fatigue

[[Page 60498]]

from night work and sleep loss. Thus, PVT lapses are a valid index for 
evaluating candidate technologies.
    Additionally: (1) Each device will be time locked in real-time to 
PVT performance to permit coherence estimates for minute-to-minute 
fluctuations and bout-to-bout fluctuations in alertness-drowsiness 
across the entire 42 hour period of wakefulness; (2) suppliers of 
devices will have no knowledge of PVT lapse data during the course of 
their extracting drowsiness/alertness scores from their devices, while 
the researchers will have no knowledge of the device's scoring 
algorithm. This double blind procedure will be maintained throughout 
data acquisition and analysis; (3) to further optimize the reliability 
of coherence estimates, technology suppliers will also be unaware of 
the timing of data acquisition; and (4) processed data (drowsiness 
scores) received from device manufacturers and PVT lapse data 
(criterion vigilance performance scores) from the researcher will be 
electronically forwarded to an independent professional statistician 
for calculation of coherence results.
    The independent coherence results will be used as the basis for 
assessing the validity of the submitted device. The non-obtrusiveness 
and ease of use by the subject driver of the device will be assessed by 
the researchers during the laboratory phase of this research and be 
noted. Additionally, the device must be ``ready-to-use'' with clear 
instructions on how to operate the device. This means that the 
laboratory researchers will not have to do any engineering or re-
configuring of the devices in order to use them in the laboratory 
validation.
    Results from this program will be important criteria in the 
selection of devices eligible to participate in the planned IVI 
Operational Field Test of Drowsy Driver Technology planned to begin in 
late FY 2001.

Technology Submission Instructions

     Submit proposed device descriptions to the U.S. Department of 
Transportation's Public Docket Management Room at the address listed 
above. The submission should include the following:
    1. A detailed description of the device, along with operating 
instructions.
    2. It should be no more than 10 pages in length.
    3. Any existing evidence of objective validity, reliability, 
sensitivity, or specificity is encouraged to be submitted. This 
information DOES NOT count toward the 10 page length limit.
    4. Three copies of your submission.
    5. Your name, address, phone number and e-mail address.
    6. DO NOT submit your device at this time.
    7. Applications, once submitted, become the property of the US DOT.

Joseph N. Kanianthra,
Acting Associate Administrator for Research and Development, National 
Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
[FR Doc. 00-26015 Filed 10-10-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-M