How cars could know if you're too drunk to drive
By Ann Bednarz,
Network World |
Mar 1, 2011 12:00 AM
PT
Researchers and technologists are working on unobtrusive alcohol-detection technologies for cars
Over the legal limit to drive? Your car may someday let you know – and prevent you from driving. Launched in 2008, Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) is a five-year, $10 million program supported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and more than a dozen car manufacturers. Its charter is to develop advanced in-vehicle alcohol detection technologies that could be suitable for all drivers, not just convicted offenders. So far, DADSS has identified potential technologies, awarded contracts, and tested prototypes. Focus groups are underway, and the next stage of prototype development is set to begin. Also see the full story version.
Autoliv Development of Vargarda, Sweden, is working on a system to measure alcohol from the exhaled breath of the driver using non-dispersive infrared technology. Concentrations of carbon dioxide are used to measure dilution of the driver's breath. In this way, no physical contact with the driver's mouth is required, so there's no need for a mouthpiece. The tricky part is placing sensors to ensure that breath samples are taken from the driver, not other passengers.
TruTouch Technologies of Albuquerque, N.M., developed a touch-based prototype using near-infrared (NIR) absorption spectroscopy to measure alcohol in skin tissue. It's designed to work by shining NIR light on the driver's skin. The light scatters several millimeters through the driver's skin before returning to the skin's surface, where it’s collected by an optical touch pad and analyzed to determine tissue alcohol concentration, according to DADSS.
After receiving early prototypes, DADSS began its own testing to verify how the tech prototypes perform. Lab testing includes both bench tests in DADSS' BSL-1 laboratory and human subject tests performed with experts from McLean Hospital, a Waltham, Mass., facility affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
In the coming months, Phase 2 of the program, which includes vehicle interior mockups, will get underway. "The Phase 2 development is ultimately going to result in research vehicles. Those will have the technology on board that we can demonstrate," said Susan Ferguson of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety (ACTS). "We expect those technologies sometime in the first half of 2013."
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