Mercedes Attention Assist

By Sam Hardy

24th December 2007

Motorists falling asleep at the wheel? Mercedes has developed a system that uses sensors to monitor a driver’s behaviour, and can spot abrupt changes in style – which could mean they are nodding off.

The technology, called Attention Assist, is the first tiredness-recognition system that doesn’t involve assessing the car’s road position or the driver’s eye movement. During every journey, the device is busy creating a profile of the motorist, based on their typical driving patterns. If this deviates significantly, and shows signs of fatigue, the lifesaver issues an alarm and a message on the dashboard warning the driver to pull over.

The system pays attention to the way indicators and pedals are used, acceleration and suspicious steering inputs, and takes into account external factors, such as the weather and road conditions. The technology will be available from 2009.