Hyundai Mobis is developing a driverless system that would direct the vehicle to a safe area when it senses the driver dozing off, the company said Thursday.

The system named departed driver rescue and exit maneuver, or DDREM, takes full control of the steering wheel when it determines that the driver is incapable of driving and leads the vehicle to the nearest road shoulder or resting area. The company aims to fully develop it by 2021, after introducing it at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas next month.

“Safety is a top priority at Hyundai Mobis, so we are trying to dramatically reduce the number of accidents through DDREM,” said David Agnew, the director of advanced engineering at Hyundai Mobis North America, in charge of the development.

According to the American Automobile Association, the number of fatal accidents caused by drowsy driving reached 6,400 cases in 2015.

DDREM is operated with two systems, one of which checks the eye movement of a driver through a biometric sensor and the other alerts unstable lane-changing.

Test runs of the technology began this October at the company‘s test bed in Detroit. Hyundai Mobis is aiming to test out DDREM on roads next year. 

By Kim Bo-gyung (lisakim425@heraldcorp.com)