New Device Set to Significantly Reduce Number of Fatalities Caused by Drowsy Drivers

February 14, 2001, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Advanced Safety Concepts, Inc. and Complexica, Inc. today announced that their joint collaboration to develop a new safety device will significantly reduce the number of traffic fatalities caused by drowsy or impaired drivers behind the wheel. The new product, branded under the name MINDS^TM (MicroNod Detection System), applies sensing and detection, machine learning and complexity science technologies to automotive safety applications. The low-cost device sits invisibly in the roof of an automobile, truck or bus and triggers alerting systems when drowsiness is observed in the driver.

Developed with technologies from the New Mexico-based Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Santa Fe Institute, MINDS is able to locate the exact position of the driver's head and pass this information to a small microprocessor.

Advanced neural network technology reads how each particular driver holds his head when fully alert and detects the beginnings of drowsy behavior. Alerting devices are then activated according to the degree of inattention or drowsiness of the driver. The device learns the specific behavior patterns of various individuals and is able to distinguish among several drivers of a given vehicle. The original research effort by ASCI was a public-private development effort, which involved New Mexico State Highway & Transportation Department, the New Mexico Division of Federal Highway Administration, and the Alliance For Transportation Research Institute of the University of New Mexico.

"When we tested this research with our snowplow operators, we knew we were sitting on the edge of what would become the standard for all drivers in the future, said David Albright, Research Bureau Chief for the New Mexico State Highway & Transportation Department. "It really is straightforward, we are making it safer for all of us to get home each night."

Technology Saving Lives

It is possible that even more traffic deaths are due to drivers falling asleep at the wheel than due to intoxicated drivers, according to a recent study reported in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The study found that "staying awake for 17 to 19 hours -- a normal working day for many people -- can dampen your mental and physical reaction times as dramatically as two drinks." The American public is concerned about professional driver safety as well. A recent survey of Americans conducted by the Insurance Research Council found that "a majority of the public (57 percent) believes that increasing from 10 to 12 the number of hours a truck driver is allowed to drive with no break is unsafe. More than half (56 percent) said they would be willing to pay more for goods and shipping to have truckers' total working hours reduced to no more than 12 hours per day."

"MINDS has four great features," said Philip Kithil, President of Advanced Safety Concepts, Inc. "It operates in real time, it anticipates the driver becoming sleepy, it can be produced inexpensively, and it can be installed in new vehicles or retrofitted into existing cars, trucks busses and fleet vehicles." Recent tests indicate that MINDS is able to detect drowsy behavior with much greater accuracy than human observers. "Currently, this device works better than anything on the market, or even contemplated for the market," said Kithil. "Over 8,500 drivers and passengers are killed each year in accidents in which drowsiness is the primary causation, according to recent Federal Government data. If we can prevent just 25 percent of the deaths, we will save over 2,000 lives per year."

Advanced Safety Concepts, Inc. and Complexica, Inc. formed the strategic alliance to explore automotive safety applications utilizing machine learning and complexity science. "This is a true information age alliance," said Roger Jones, CEO and Chief Scientist of Complexica. "The success of the project is a direct result of the synergy among the various high-tech companies forming in the Santa Fe area."

Several manufacturing agreements have been signed or are in current negotiation. "If things go well, we should see the MINDS detection system in the 2004-2005 model cars," said Kithil.

Company Profiles

About Advanced Safety Concepts, Inc. (ASCI)

Founded in 1993 by Philip W. Kithil, ASCI is currently developing capacitive occupant sensing systems for "smart" airbags, drowsy-driver detection and other automotive sensing applications. ASCI has licensed its technology to five leading automotive industry suppliers of airbag systems, vehicle interiors and glass products to major automobile manufacturers worldwide.

The ASCI sensing technology originated at Sandia National Laboratories where it was first developed for control of robot arms that monitored the integrity of nuclear chemical waste containers.

About Complexica, Inc.

Dr. Roger D. Jones, formerly of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Professor John Casti of the Santa Fe Institute founded Complexica in 1999. The company uses complexity science and machine learning technology to solve business and engineering problems. Complexica has licensed a variation on the neural network technology used in the drowsy driver detector to another high-tech New Mexico company, CommodiCast, Inc., where it is being used to forecast commodity prices for hedging and speculation.

The technology used in the drowsy driver detection algorithm originated with technology developed by Dr. Jones and others at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the early 1990s. This technology has been used in a variety of applications including anti-lock braking systems, chemical process control, control of beam sources for high energy accelerators, detection of patterns in images and sonar signals, traffic monitoring and classification, credit card and tax return fraud detection, delinquency and bankruptcy forecasting, commodity price forecasting and tide level forecasting.