Real Participants in Controlled Conditions: We work with volunteer drivers who consume alcohol under careful supervision and then drive in a safe, controlled environment, producing genuine impaired driving behavior for our dataset. All participants give informed consent and are monitored throughout to ensure their well-being.

Naturalistic Driving Scenarios: Driving sessions take place in real vehicles on closed test tracks or designated routes that mimic normal road conditions. Each session feels like real-world driving, complete with varied road layouts, turns, and traffic scenarios so that the data reflects true on-road behavior. We even introduce dynamic challenges (such as surprise obstacles and route changes) to simulate hazard-rich situations a driver might face. This commitment to realistic, naturalistic conditions results in unmatched data realism for training our AI.

Comprehensive Instrumentation & Ground Truth: Every vehicle is outfitted with a multi-camera system and other sensors capturing the driver’s facial cues, eye movements, and driving performance from multiple angles. Professional breathalyzers are used to measure each driver’s Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) at regular intervals, providing accurate ground truth data on impairment levels. These tools, along with detailed observer logs, ensure that every nuance of impairment is recorded and correlated from subtle drowsiness to delayed reaction times, creating a rich multi-modal dataset.

Diverse Conditions & Participants: We collect data across different times of day (daylight, dusk, and night hours) and, when possible, various weather conditions to ensure the dataset covers a broad range of real driving environments. Our participant pool is deliberately diverse including a balanced mix of genders, ages, and ethnic backgrounds so the data represents how impairment manifests across demographics. This diversity makes our algorithm robust for all driver profiles.

Ethical & Safety Compliance: Every data collection event is independently reviewed and approved by ethics boards before starting, ensuring strict adherence to participant safety, risk mitigation, and informed consent protocols. We operate under full GDPR compliance as well, handling all personal data under the highest privacy standards (with measures like anonymization and encryption) to protect participants’ identities. During the event, a dedicated medical emergency team (and often off-duty police or medical professionals) is on standby on site, and rigorous safety plans are in place to manage any scenarios. These precautions mean our studies are conducted with the utmost care, so we capture world-class data without compromising anyone’s safety or rights.