Nowadays road traffic fatalities as well as injuries and monetary losses have become global crisis. Safe driving is a major concern for society and individuals. Every year more than 1.2 million people die on the world\'s road accident and about 50 million are injured. In order to address this serious problem, the United Nations has declared 2011 - 2020 as the decade of action for road safety. One of the main causes of road accidents, is related with Driver Fatigue. This result from sleep deprivation or sleep disorders and it is an important factor in the increasing number of accidents on today\'s roads. According with the study published by NHTSA , in 2011, Drowsy driving was reportedly involved in 2.2 to 2.6 % (5-year average, 1004 fatalities) of total fatal crashes annually during the period 2005 through 2009, nationwide (USA). In 2009, 2.5% (832 fatalities) of the fatalities that occurred on U.S. roadways were reported to involve drowsy driving.

We live in the age of technology and information, this evolution of technology in daily routine makes our life more secure, easy and comfortable. This work integrates in a project, where is intended to develop new features for the future car\'s cockpit. In this project is required to integrate the developed System in a DSM (Driver Simulator Mockup), and it will be subjected to tests realized by the human factors team, where the purpose is to verify if the system developed ensures all the requirements.

This thesis, presents a non-intrusive system which will make a constant monitoring driver\'s eyes using an eye tracking technology developed by the company SmartEye. This system is composed by a camera, infrared light, a microcontroller IMX6 board from Freescale, a desktop pc and have the software support to obtain data from the eyes and head. It is desired to implement this system in an embedded system fully integrated with an automotive HMI.

With the algorithm support it is possible to detect symptoms of driver fatigue early enough to avoid accidents. One of these symptoms is the micro-sleeps. It is an episode of short sleep lasting a fraction of a second to thirty seconds. The brain goes to sleep involuntary and it is more likely to happen in monotonous situations. In these situations the driver loses the consciousness, endangering his life.

The Eye Tracking System provides various parameters and with this data is used for the development of the algorithm purpose. The algorithm is developed to minimize the complexity of the system and with the same importance to maximize the efficiency.

It is with great confidence on the results that this dissertation has produced, that it is possible to assert that the eye tracking system is a good option to detect driver fatigue and should be installed in future cars allowing the increment of road safety and consequently the prevention of driving accidents.