Patent ID: 7692551

Claim:
A method for detecting operator alertness of an operator of a vehicle or machine, the method comprising steps of: determining whether at least one eye of the operator is visible; determining whether the operator is generally facing forward with respect to the vehicle; and responsive to determining that at least one eye of the operator is not visible or that the operator is not facing forward, applying at least one of position analysis and motion analysis to a three dimensional representation of the operator to determine alertness of the operator, wherein the applying further comprises: collecting reference position data associated with the operator, or a portion thereof, when the operator is in an alert state; determining observed position data of one or more points of a three dimensional representation of the operator during a time interval, wherein the three dimensional representation of the operator is established via stereo vision processing; and sending an alert signal to alert the operator if a detected angular shift of one or more points of the representation exceed a displacement threshold.