Method for determining a viewing direction of a person

1. A method for determining a viewing direction of a person in a motor vehicle, the method comprising the acts of:

recording, by a camera, a head region of the person in the motor vehicle;

detecting a position of a head of the person based on said recording of the head region;

detecting an eye position of the person based on the detected position of the head of the person;

providing the detected eye position to a depth sensor;

acquiring, by the depth sensor, a surface contour of a surface of an eye of the person based on the detected eye position;

detecting a normal vector on the surface of the eye as a function of the acquired surface contour; and

determining the viewing direction of the person as a function of the normal vector.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the normal vector is detected as a function of a pupil region detected from the surface contour and a curvature of the pupil region.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the pupil region is determined as an elevation on the surface of the eye and the pupil region projects over a spherical surface of an apple of the eye.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the normal vector at the center of the pupil region is detected as a function of the curvature at the center of the pupil region.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the viewing direction is determined by applying one or two correction angles to the normal vector, the one or more correction angles being determined by a calibration method.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the person is a driver of the motor vehicle.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the depth sensor is a TOF camera or a LIDAR sensor.