IMPAIRED OPERATOR DETECTION AND WARNING SYSTEM EMPLOYING EYEBLINK ANALYSIS

A system and method for detecting and warning of an impaired operator, such as a drowsy vehicle/machine operator or air traffic controller. The system and method employ an imaging apparatus which produces consecutive digital images including the face and eyes of an operator. There is an eye finding unit which determines the location of the operator's eyes within each digital image, and generates correlation coefficients corresponding to each eye which quantify the degree of correspondence between pixels associated with the location of the operator's eye in an immediately preceding image in comparison to pixels associated with the location of the operator's eye in a current image. An impaired operator detection unit is used to average the first N consecutive correlation coefficients generated to generate a first average correlation coefficient. After the production of each subsequent image by the imaging apparatus, the impaired operator detection unit averages the previous N consecutive correlation coefficients generated to create a next average correlation coefficient. Next, the impaired operator detection unit analyzes the average correlation coefficients associated with each eye to extract at least one parameter attributable to an eyeblink of the operator's eyes. These extracted parameters are compared to an alert operator threshold associated with that parameter. An impaired operator warning unit is used to indicate that the operator may be impaired if any extracted parameters deviate from the associated threshold in a prescribed way.