A Lightweight In-Vehicle Alcohol Detection
Using Smart Sensing and Supervised Learning
I. INTRODUCTION
Alcohol is a hazardous and intoxicating
chemical that may lead to addiction.
According to the World Health Organization
(WHO), every year, three million people die
as a result of alcohol drinking (Figure 1), and
millions more suffer from impairments and
bad health. Overall, hazardous alcohol
consumption accounts for 5.1 percent of the
worldwide disease burden. More specifically,
hazardous alcohol consumption accounts for
7.1 percent and 2.2 percent of the worldwide
burden of sickness, respectively, for males
and females [1]. Alcohol is the primary cause
of early mortality and disability among those
aged 20 to 39 years old, accounting for 13.5
percent of all deaths in this age range [2].
Alcohol-related fatalities and hospitalization
are more likely among impoverished and
especially vulnerable communities. In
addition, alcohol intake can lead to driving
impairment, which is a major cause of
automobile accidents across the world [3].
Indeed, drinking alcohol before (or even
during) driving impairs numerous of the
driver’s functional skills, including tracking
power, eyesight, attention, response time, and
adequate speed control, all of which increase
the chance of an accident [4]. According to
[5], drivers with a blood alcohol content
(BAC) of 1.5 g/L are deemed to be 20 times
more risky than sober drivers.
Moreover, driving under the influence of
alcohol is usually associated to not wearing
seat belts, which increases the risk of harm in
most circumstances, as documented in [6].
For instance, a research released in 2014
indicated that alcohol was implicated in about
25 percent of all road deaths in Europe [7].
Between 1995 and 1997, roughly 40 percent
of drivers involved in traffic accidents in
Greece were found to have drunk alcohol [8].
In the United States, alcohol-related
automobile collisions killed more than 10,000
people in 2019, accounting for approximately
30 percent of all road deaths [9].
To solve this challenge, a great amount of
research, both in business and in the
academia, has been carried out on smart
systems [10] that can recognize this sort of
behavior and aid to avoid the accompanying
hazards. The scientific community has sought
to design smart technologies that may be
integrated into current automobiles to identify
dangerous behavior and avert accidents
caused by alcohol intake
[11,12,13,14,15,16,17].
According to the survey report given in [18],
there are basically two groups of drivers
behaviors detecting approaches, namely:
Real-time techniques: These strategies
require acquiring and processing data
regarding the driver’s behavior continually
[19]. The primary advantage of these systems
is that they may identify problems quickly,
allowing for timely decisions to be made and
damages to be minimized. Some examples of
these approaches are: vehicle-mounted
cameras [20], smartphone built-in sensors
[21,22], specialized hardware/sensors [23],
advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)
[24], etc.
Non-real-time approaches: These strategies
employ offline acquired data linked to
drivers’ conduct. They are typically more
exact as they employ more complex materials
and have more available time for computing
and analysis. These strategies allow specialist
governmental agencies to make future
judgments and suitable measurements for
decreasing probable risks and mishaps. Some
examples of these strategies are: vehicle-
mounted cameras [25], in-vehicle data
recorders [26], simulations [27], surveys
[28,29], etc. These approaches may also be
employed for identifying traffic offenses and
supplying shreds of evidence against drivers
when they are handed penalty letters.
In this study, we proposed a strategy based on
artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for
evaluating data obtained using MQ-3 sensors
[30] in order to identify the presence of
alcohol inside cars. The key property of these
type of sensors is that they have a high
sensitivity to alcohol with strong resistance to
disruption of fuel, smoke, and mist. The
sensors are linked via an ARM Cortex M4
Microcontroller [31]. The acquired data are
saved in a CSV file containing 14,400
samples. The detection problem was
subsequently treated as a supervised machine
learning (ML) problem using shallow neural
networks (SNN) [32].
The initial step for our ML challenge is the
preparation stage which consists of loading
the data from the CSV file. The second step
is the learning stage, during which, the
training and testing processes were
undertaken. The next phase is the assessment
stage, which consists of verifying our ML
model by computing specified performance
metrics. Our software module was then
uploaded to the microcontroller device. After
this, the gadget may be mounted inside the
car to be operated for detecting alcohol
present.
The primary contributions of this study are as
follows:
We built a novel lightweight in-vehicle
alcohol detection system employing smart
sensors and optimizable neural networks. A
detailed design and description are shown to
offer the whole picture of the calculation
process.
We assessed our intelligent model using
dataset instances produced by a sensory
circuit, achieving: – High-performance
indicators of 99.8%, 99.7%, and 99.5% for
accuracy, harmonic mean, and kappa index,
respectively.
– Low inferencing overhead equivalent to
2.22 μ s, making our system ideal for real-
time usage in real-life settings.
The remaining half of the article is outlined
as follows. Section 2 discusses comparable
studies on similar concepts. In Section 3, the
adopted in-vehicle alcohol detection model is
given in details. In Section 4, the major
collected results are provided. Finally,
Section 5 closes the work.
II. LITERARUTE REVIEW
Alcohol is a hazardous and intoxicating
chemical that may lead to addiction.
According to the World Health Organization
(WHO), every year, three million people die
as a result of alcohol drinking (Figure 1), and
millions more suffer from impairments and
bad health. Overall, hazardous alcohol
consumption accounts for 5.1 percent of the
worldwide disease burden. More specifically,
hazardous alcohol consumption accounts for
7.1 percent and 2.2 percent of the worldwide
burden of sickness, respectively, for males
and females [1]. Alcohol is the primary cause
of early mortality and disability among those
aged 20 to 39 years old, accounting for 13.5
percent of all deaths in this age range [2].
Alcohol-related fatalities and hospitalization
are more likely among impoverished and
especially vulnerable communities. In
addition, alcohol intake can lead to driving
impairment, which is a major cause of
automobile accidents across the world [3].
Indeed, drinking alcohol before (or even
during) driving impairs numerous of the
driver’s functional skills, including tracking
power, eyesight, attention, response time, and
adequate speed control, all of which increase
the chance of an accident [4]. According to
[5], drivers with a blood alcohol content
(BAC) of 1.5 g/L are deemed to be 20 times
more risky than sober drivers.
Moreover, driving under the influence of
alcohol is usually associated to not wearing
seat belts, which increases the risk of harm in
most circumstances, as documented in [6].
For instance, a research released in 2014
indicated that alcohol was implicated in about
25 percent of all road deaths in Europe [7].
Between 1995 and 1997, roughly 40 percent
of drivers involved in traffic accidents in
Greece were found to have drunk alcohol [8].
In the United States, alcohol-related
automobile collisions killed more than 10,000
people in 2019, accounting for approximately
30 percent of all road deaths [9].
To solve this challenge, a great amount of
research, both in business and in the
academia, has been carried out on smart
systems [10] that can recognize this sort of
behavior and aid to avoid the accompanying
hazards. The scientific community has sought
to design smart technologies that may be
integrated into current automobiles to identify
dangerous behavior and avert accidents
caused by alcohol intake
[11,12,13,14,15,16,17].
According to the survey report given in [18],
there are basically two groups of drivers
behaviors detecting approaches, namely:
Real-time techniques: These strategies
require acquiring and processing data
regarding the driver’s behavior continually
[19]. The primary advantage of these systems
is that they may identify problems quickly,
allowing for timely decisions to be made and
damages to be minimized. Some examples of
these approaches are: vehicle-mounted
cameras [20], smartphone built-in sensors
[21,22], specialized hardware/sensors [23],
advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)
[24], etc.
Non-real-time approaches: These strategies
employ offline acquired data linked to
drivers’ conduct. They are typically more
exact as they employ more complex materials
and have more available time for computing
and analysis. These strategies allow specialist
governmental agencies to make future
judgments and suitable measurements for
decreasing probable risks and mishaps. Some
examples of these strategies are: vehicle-
mounted cameras [25], in-vehicle data
recorders [26], simulations [27], surveys
[28,29], etc. These approaches may also be
employed for identifying traffic offenses and
supplying shreds of evidence against drivers
when they are handed penalty letters.
In this study, we proposed a strategy based on
artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for
evaluating data obtained using MQ-3 sensors
[30] in order to identify the presence of
alcohol inside cars. The key property of these
type of sensors is that they have a high
sensitivity to alcohol with strong resistance to
disruption of fuel, smoke, and mist. The
sensors are linked via an ARM Cortex M4
Microcontroller [31]. The acquired data are
saved in a CSV file containing 14,400
samples. The detection problem was
subsequently treated as a supervised machine
learning (ML) problem using shallow neural
networks (SNN) [32].
The initial step for our ML challenge is the
preparation stage which consists of loading
the data from the CSV file. The second step
is the learning stage, during which, the
training and testing processes were
undertaken. The next phase is the assessment
stage, which consists of verifying our ML
model by computing specified performance
metrics. Our software module was then
uploaded to the microcontroller device. After
this, the gadget may be mounted inside the
car to be operated for detecting alcohol
present.
The primary contributions of this study are as
follows:
We built a novel lightweight in-vehicle
alcohol detection system employing smart
sensors and optimizable neural networks. A
detailed design and description are shown to
offer the whole picture of the calculation
process.
We assessed our intelligent model using
dataset instances produced by a sensory
circuit, achieving: – High-performance
indicators of 99.8%, 99.7%, and 99.5% for
accuracy, harmonic mean, and kappa index,
respectively.
– Low inferencing overhead equivalent to
2.22 μ s, making our system ideal for real-
time usage in real-life settings.
The remaining half of the article is outlined
as follows. Section 2 discusses comparable
studies on similar concepts. In Section 3, the
adopted in-vehicle alcohol detection model is
given in details. In Section 4, the major
collected results are provided. Finally,
Section 5 closes the work.
III. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The suggested methodology intends to
construct a lightweight in-vehicle alcohol
detection system combining smart sensing
and supervised learning techniques. This
system will be designed to detect the
presence of alcohol in the car cabin
environment in real-time, delivering
automatic feedback or triggering safety
systems to prevent drunk driving
occurrences. The technique explains the
major phases involved in data gathering,
sensor deployment, model training, and
system validation.
1. Data Collection:
The initial phase entails gathering a broad
collection of sensor readings from the vehicle
interior environment under various scenarios.
Gas sensors capable of detecting alcohol
vapors will be put in key positions throughout
the vehicle, such as near the driver's seat and
passenger area. Sensor data will be gathered
continually during simulated driving
scenarios or controlled studies.
The dataset will comprise samples from both
alcohol-positive and alcohol-negative
situations, generated by introducing
controlled quantities of alcohol into the car
cabin or mimicking normal driving
conditions without alcohol presence. Ground
truth labels identifying the presence or
absence of alcohol will be collected
concurrently with sensor data collection to
assist supervised learning model training.
2. Sensor Deployment and Calibration:
Smart sensors capable of detecting alcohol
vapors will be incorporated into the car
interior environment utilizing non-invasive
mounting techniques. Sensors will be
calibrated to enable precise and consistent
detection of alcohol concentrations within the
appropriate range. Calibration techniques
may entail exposing sensors to known
concentrations of alcohol in controlled
laboratory settings and modifying sensor
parameters accordingly.
Sensor location and coverage will be tuned to
improve detection sensitivity while reducing
false positives and false negatives.
parameters such as sensor sensitivity,
reaction time, and interference from other
environmental parameters (e.g., temperature,
humidity) will be evaluated during sensor
deployment and calibration.
3. Feature Extraction and Selection:
Sensor data obtained from the car interior
environment will undergo feature extraction
to capture crucial information suggestive of
alcohol content. Features such as sensor
readings, temporal trends, and spatial
distributions will be retrieved from raw
sensor data and utilized as input for
supervised learning model training.
Feature selection approaches may be utilized
to discover the most informative and
discriminative characteristics for alcohol
detection. Dimensionality reduction
approaches, such as principal component
analysis (PCA) or feature significance
ranking, will be utilized to streamline the
feature space and increase model efficiency
and interpretability.
and increase classification accuracy. Model
training will require repeated refinement and
validation to achieve resilience and
dependability in real-world scenarios.
5. System Integration and Validation:
The learned machine learning model will be
implemented into the in-vehicle alcohol
detection system, together with sensor
hardware and signal processing algorithms.
The system will be tested and verified under
numerous driving scenarios, including varied
alcohol concentrations, ambient temperatures,
and driving behaviors.
Validation investigations will entail
controlled tests in laboratory settings as well
as field trials in real-world driving scenarios.
Performance measures such as sensitivity,
specificity, accuracy, and response time will
be analyzed to determine the usefulness and
reliability of the system in detecting alcohol
present and reducing drunk driving events.
6. Ethical Considerations:
Throughout the study process, ethical
questions relating to user privacy, data
security, and potential biases in algorithmic
decision-making will be addressed. Measures
will be implemented to maintain participant
confidentiality, inform consent, and
guarantee compliance with relevant rules and
guidelines governing human subjects
research and vehicle safety requirements.

4. Model Training and Optimization:

Supervised learning methods, such as support

vector machines (SVM), random forests, or
neural networks, will be trained on the
retrieved characteristics to construct
prediction models for alcohol detection. The
dataset will be separated into training,
validation, and test sets to evaluate model
performance and generalization capabilities.

Hyperparameter optimization approaches,

such as grid search or Bayesian optimization,
will be applied to fine-tune model parameters