Evaluation of Fatigue in Older Drivers Using a Multimodal Medical Sensor and Driving Simulator

Abstract

In recent years, the spread of wearable medical sensors has made it possible to easily measure biological signals such as pulse rate and body acceleration (BA), and from these biological signals, it is possible to evaluate the degree of biological stress and autonomic nervous activity in daily life. Accumulated fatigue due to all-day work and lack of sleep is thought to be a contributing factor to distracted driving, and technology to estimate fatigue from biological signals during driving is desired. In this study, we investigated fatigue evaluation during a driving simulator (DS) using biological information on seven older subjects. A DS experiment was performed in the morning and afternoon, and no significant differences were observed in the change over time of heart rate variability and skin temperature. On the other hand, in the afternoon DS, changes in arousal and body movements were observed based on BA calculated from the three-axis acceleration sensor and fingertip reaction time in a psychomotor vigilance test. It is suggested that by combining biological information, it may be possible to evaluate the degree of fatigue from the presence or absence of arousal and changes in body movements while driving.