Single-vehicle roadway departure (SVRD) accidents occur in many cases owing to driver distraction or drowsiness constituting a substantial share of today's road vehicle accidents and casualties. This paper describes a distraction-based lane-keeping support system, which intervenes only when the driver is positively detected as being distracted. Distraction here is understood as cognitive and visual distraction, and the focus of this system is on the latter one. In order to estimate the driver's visual distraction level, a video-based driver monitoring system is used. Lane-keeping support is provided by an additional torque applied on the steering shaft in order to regain an appropriate lane position. In this manner the system only intervenes when the vehicle has drifted out of its lane and while the driver is distracted. Test track investigations indicate large opportunities for such a system from a driver perspective, provided that sufficient reliability of the employed vision sensor for lane and face tracking can be obtained.

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Lane departure warning (LDW) is a driver warning system designed to reduce the number of unintended lane departures. We addressed warning effectiveness and customer acceptance when the unintended lane departures are the result of drowsy driving. Thirty-two adults who were sleep deprived for 23 hours participated in the study and drove Ford's VIRTTEX driving simulator. Four Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) for LDW were evaluated: Steering Wheel Torque, Rumble Strip Sound, Steering Wheel Vibration and Head Up Display. A yaw deviation technique was used to produce controlled lane departures in the first two hours of the drive while for the last 20 minutes driver-initiated lane departures were analyzed. The Steering Wheel Vibration HMI, accompanied by Steering Wheel Torque, was found to be the most effective HMI for LDW in a group of drowsy drivers, with faster reaction times and smaller lane excursions. The Vibration HMI was also perceived by the drowsy drivers to be acceptable and helpful.

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Car parking has been, and still is, a growing problem, with increasing vehicle sizes in the luxury segment as well as sport-utility vehicles. This is especially true when bearing in mind the confined parking spaces in parking lots and cities. While damage during parking generally does not cause any injury to the passengers, it is costly and annoying. Park assist systems are by no means new on the market, since passive systems which provide longitudinal guidance using ultrasonic distance sensors have been available on the market for a number of years.The system presented is a semi-automated approach to parallel parking problems, as they frequently occur in European and Asian cities. The challenge during the development of this system was to have as few components as possible added to a standard vehicle, seeking reuse of many of the already built-in functionalities. The result is a system that leaves the longitudinal control of the vehicle to the driver but automates the steering process, and even stops the vehicle when the final parking position is reached.normally be used for all kinds of parking manoeuvres 96260, PVH34, Gothenburg, Sweden. email: jpohl12@ where the parking space is indicated on the ground by clearly visible marking lines. volvocars.com D00405