Medical Information Technology, Helmholtz Institute, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
Toyota Collaborative Safety Research Center, Toyota Motors Corporation, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2023 Apr 14;23(8):4002. doi: 10.3390/s23084002.
With higher levels of automation in vehicles, the need for robust driver monitoring systems increases, since it must be ensured that the driver can intervene at any moment. Drowsiness, stress and alcohol are still the main sources of driver distraction. However, physiological problems such as heart attacks and strokes also exhibit a significant risk for driver safety, especially with respect to the ageing population. In this paper, a portable cushion with four sensor units with multiple measurement modalities is presented. Capacitive electrocardiography, reflective photophlethysmography, magnetic induction measurement and seismocardiography are performed with the embedded sensors. The device can monitor the heart and respiratory rates of a vehicle driver. The promising results of the first proof-of-concept study with twenty participants in a driving simulator not only demonstrate the accuracy of the heart (above 70% of medical-grade heart rate estimations according to IEC 60601-2-27) and respiratory rate measurements (around 30% with errors below 2 BPM), but also that the cushion might be useful to monitor morphological changes in the capacitive electrocardiogram in some cases. The measurements can potentially be used to detect drowsiness and stress and thus the fitness of the driver, since heart rate variability and breathing rate variability can be captured. They are also useful for the early prediction of cardiovascular diseases, one of the main reasons for premature death. The data are publicly available in the UnoVis dataset.
随着车辆自动化程度的提高，对强大的驾驶员监控系统的需求也在增加，因为必须确保驾驶员可以在任何时候进行干预。困倦、压力和酒精仍然是驾驶员分心的主要原因。然而，生理问题，如心脏病发作和中风，也对驾驶员的安全构成了重大风险，特别是在老龄化人口方面。在本文中，提出了一种带有四个带有多种测量模式的传感器单元的便携式坐垫。嵌入式传感器可以进行电容式心电图、反射光容积描记法、磁感应测量和心震描记法。该设备可以监测驾驶员的心率和呼吸频率。在驾驶模拟器中对 20 名参与者进行的首次概念验证研究的有希望结果不仅证明了心率（根据 IEC 60601-2-27，高于 70%的医疗级心率估计值）和呼吸率测量的准确性（误差在 2 BPM 以下，约为 30%），而且该坐垫在某些情况下可能有助于监测电容心电图中的形态变化。这些测量可以潜在地用于检测困倦和压力，从而评估驾驶员的健康状况，因为可以捕捉心率变异性和呼吸率变异性。它们对于心血管疾病的早期预测也很有用，心血管疾病是过早死亡的主要原因之一。这些数据在 UnoVis 数据集上公开可用。
