Eye-Tracking Technologies

Logistics eye-tracking is gaining a lot of traction with the electronic logging devices (ELD) mandate. This technology has popular use cases across industries including retail, healthcare, research, automotive, consumer electronics, government & defense, and security & surveillance. The global eye-tracking market is valued at more than half a billion market and forecasted to grow @26.5% CAGR going forward.

1. Eye-tracking is placing driver safety at the core: Driver fatigue is one of the most possible factors for traffic accidents due to the fact that it affects driver's ability to make a decision, slow down reaction time and decrease driver's attention. Some studies show that almost 15–20% of all fatal traffic accidents are related to driver fatigue and recent statistics estimate that annually 1200 deaths and 76,000 injuries can be attributed to fatigue-related crashes so that it is crucially necessary to promote the technologies for detecting or preventing driver fatigue. After ELD mandate went into effect since Dec 2017, it was required of all truck drivers to have an ELD placed inside of their cabin to record driving hours. ELD’s also allow drivers to share records of duty status and worry about less paperwork whenever they are driving.

2. Taking driver safety to next-level with voice enablement: The new technology with the use of voice command can allow truck drivers to do different tasks without taking their hands off the steering wheel. ELD’s are compatible with different tablets and smartphones to make the use of them more convenient for the truck driver. Many applications available to truck drivers require the drivers to use their hands or stop driving to enter in different information.

3. The relevance of eye-tracking in a future autonomous vehicle: Due to a shortage of truck drivers, the idea of autonomous trucks has quickly gone from just an idea to a reality. Autonomous trucks could potentially be used to drive long, plain highway miles until a driver is required for the more complex, last miles of the delivery. Autonomous trucks very much require eye-tracking and it takes the technology to more cognitive control levels.

The emergence of artificial intelligence and the rapid development of electronic and information technology provide more opportunity to detect driver behavior and fatigue. The Microsoft and Tobii partnership also signify the tech giants focus on this technology and eye-tracking is all set to enabling the next-gen driver safety.