CHENNAI: Driver fatigue may be defined as decline in driver’s performance. A driver’s performance and behavior is greatly influenced by physical and cognitive factors. Its contribution to individual cases is hard to measure post-facto and is often difficult to conclusively ascertain cause of crash. Hence, it is key to know about driver’s behaviour, fatigue, and performance to give appropriate interventions to avoid road accidents.
IIT Madras and Harita Seating Systems Limited (HSSL) have joined hands to address this epidemic of road accidents and developed Intelliseat™ , which is an IoT (Internet of Things) device that monitors the driver 24x7 and is confined to existing footprint of regular seats.
It operates independently and can be used for in-vehicle data of status and help central tracking by fleet owners. It can be used in driver training and fleet-risk evaluation, which eventually has a bearing on overall fleet insurance and ownership cost.
The product was launched on Friday for commercial use. Highlighting significance of the product, Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Department of Engineering Design, IIT-M said, “This system can not only make the roads safer but can also have a big impact on driver benchmarking/training, fleet insurance, etc.”
Sensors embedded in the seat monitor presence of driver in the vehicle, their behaviour, performance and fatigue. This info can be used to warn the driver in vehicle or to communicate with the fleet operator in real time. This can help them take necessary action instantaneously as well as use the information to benchmark drivers and train them. Intelliseat™ has road-tested in commercial vehicles in south India.
Darez Ahmed, MD, National Health Mission, Tamil Nadu, who launched the product, said, “We need to work together and address a key sustainable development goal of 50% reduction in trauma deaths by 2020, which is a task that can be achieved only by joint effort. Leveraging technology to tackle a big problem of ‘driver error’ leading to accidents is a welcome step.”