Patent ID: 7301465

Claim:
A drowsiness alarm system, comprising: a monitoring mechanism having a camera configured for monitoring a pupil of an eye of a subject in order to produce video data corresponding to an image of the eye, the monitoring mechanism further having a monitor processor and a communication bus connecting the processor to the camera, the monitor processor being configured for converting video data received from the camera into digital pixel data in RGB format; and an indicator mechanism having a processor configured to process data received from the monitoring mechanism regarding drowsiness of the subject of the drowsiness alarm system, including: a circuit configured for determining density of black pixels per image frame in the data; a circuit configured for setting a threshold value of the density of black pixels per image frame in a selectable number of consecutive frames to indicate drowsiness; a circuit configured for turning the indicator mechanism on in order to signal that the subject is drowsy when the determined density of black pixels falls below the threshold value in the selected number of consecutive frames; and a circuit configured for permitting the subject to programmably set threshold red, green and blue values, digital pixel data falling below the threshold RGB values being counted as a black pixel by the circuit configured for determining density of black pixels per image frame.