Patent ID: 7692550

Claim:
A method for detecting operator alertness of an operator of a vehicle or machine, the method comprising: collecting reference position data associated with the operator when the operator is in an alert state; determining observed position data of one or more reference points of a three dimensional representation of the operator, or a portion thereof, during a time interval; collecting reference motion data associated with the operator when the operator is in the alert state; determining observed motion data of the one or more reference points of the three dimensional representation of the operator during the time interval, wherein a change in position versus time is determined for the one or more reference points of the three dimensional representation of the operator; and sending an alert signal to alert the operator if a detected angular shift of the one or more reference points of the three dimensional representation exceed at least one of a displacement threshold and a motion threshold, wherein the collecting reference position data, the determining observed position data, the collecting reference motion data, and the determining observed motion data comprises creating the three dimensional representation of the operator, or a portion thereof, via stereo vision processing.