An Intelligent Noninvasive Sensor for Driver Pulse Wave Measurement

Abstract

Noninvasive sensors to detect human physiological parameters are becoming more and more important. This is especially useful to monitor driver state as driver-vehicle system is a safety-critical system. Unfortunately, current technologies in these noninvasive sensors development are not satisfactory. In this research, we developed an intelligent integrated device called "smart wheel" to monitor drivers' physiology. Specifically, a group of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) sensor, semiconductor temperature sensor, and piezoresistive sensor were integrated into a driving steering wheel. The developed device has the capability of measuring a driver's pulse wave, breathing wave, skin temperature, and gripping force in a noninvasive manner and in real time. A pilot experiment was carried out to verify the pulse wave measurement of this intelligent sensor and the result was found satisfactory.Index Terms-Driver-vehicle system, intelligent sensor, noninvasive, physiological parameter, pulse wave.

Mood measurement with Pick-A-Mood: review of current methods and design of a pictorial self-report scale

“…Instead of requiring the user to wear sensors, the product 'wears' the sensors in or on its body or surface. These sensors are typically found in input devices like computer mice (see Ji, 2007;Lin, 2011;Sun et al, 2014), or car steering wheels (Cai & Ling, 2007;Lin et al, 2007).…”

Real-Time Driver’s Biological Signal Monitoring System

“…The gripping force on the steering wheel generally decreases when a driver becomes drowsy, as the driver's muscles become increasingly relaxed. (11,12) The gripping force signal is derived from a pressure sensor attached to the steering wheel, as shown in Fig. 9.…”

Detecting Driver Fatigue by Steering Wheel Grip Force

“…According to Lin et al (2007), the steering-wheel grip force is strongly correlated with other factors that are used to measure driver fatigue, such as the pulse wave [20]. Polychronopoulos et al (2004) suggested that the grip force can be used with other measures such as eye movement [21].…”

“…(2007) also developed driver fatigue detecting systems through a comprehensive multi-sensor driver-monitoring system that included the grip force [18], [20]- [21]. However, most previous studies focused on the development of measurement methods and did not verify the validity of the grip-force measure through empirical studies.…”

“…Moreover, the experimental sessions of prior studies were too short to predict driver fatigue. For instance, in the study by Lin et al (2007), the experimental sessions to measure the grip force were less than 5 min [20].…”