Patent ID: 8761516

Claim:
A method of detecting the open or closed state of at least one eye of a face, comprising: detecting an eye of a face with an eye detection means, wherein said detecting includes detecting vertical contours of the eye with a vertical contour pixel detection means; and determining an open or closed state of the eye with means for determining an open or closed state of the eye at least on the basis of the vertical contours detected, further wherein the detection of an eye of a face comprises: defining a work window with a work window defining module, wherein said work window includes the detected eye, determining a first number of pixels belonging to the vertical contours in the work window with a module for measuring a horizontal luminosity gradient, and determining a height of the work window with a second number of pixels with a means for defining a height of a work window, and wherein the determination of the open or closed state of the eye includes comparing a ratio of the first number of pixels to the second number of pixels with a first threshold factor.