Are You Driving? Non-intrusive Driver Detection using Built-in Smartphone Sensors

In this work, we address a fundamental problem of distinguishing the driver from passengers using a fusion of embedded sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, and magnetic sensors) in a smart phone. Compared with the state-of-the-art solutions, a key property of our solution is non-intrusiveness, i.e., enabling accurate driver phone detection without relying on any particular situations, events, and dedicated hardware devices. Our system only utilizes naturally arising driver motions, i.e., sitting down sideways, closing the vehicle door, and starting the vehicle, to determine whether the user enters the vehicle from left or right and whether the user is seated in the front or rear seats.