A Research on Pedestrian Detection and Drivers' Distraction with Night Vision Enhancement Systems

Night vision enhancement systems (NVESs) have been developed to improve visibility at night through supplementing drivers' direct vision with additional information shown on a display, rather than replacing drivers' direct vision. Existing studies have shown that NVESs can increase recognition distance, however, NVESs still have a low popularity rate among vehicle owners. This could be due to the following reasons: (1) the price for a NVES is too expensive for many drivers; (2) most drivers are concerned about the distraction problem with any in-vehicle devices; and (3) a very complicated nighttime driving experimental environment is required for studying NVESs, making progress in the study of NVESs very slow. In this study, 24 experienced drivers from Northeastern University used and tested simulated production NVESs in the driving simulator at Virtual Environments Laboratory and were required to complete two experimental trials, each individually. They were divided into three groups of eight. Each group was tested against one of the following: (1) control-group without NVESs; (2) using near-infrared (NIR) NVES; and (3) using far-infrared (FIR) NVES. In addition, each participant drove in two different weather conditions one in clear weather and the other in foggy weather. Results showed that instead of distracting drivers and degrading driving performance, implementation of current NVESs on production vehicles could actually improve drivers' nighttime driving performance and pedestrian detection ability at an acceptable distraction level, especially in adverse weather conditions like fog.