Development of a real-time driver health detection system using a smart steering wheel

Abstract

The number of vehicle accidents due to driver drowsiness continues to increase. Therefore, prompt and effective detection for driver health during driving is crucial to improvement of traffic safety. A set of real-time health detection system built into a smart steering wheel for the driver is proposed in the paper. The driver's health condition (drowsiness) is detected by a developed algorithm by monitoring the driver’s biological signals, including respiration, hand grip force, photoplethysmogram (PPG), and electrocardiogram (ECG). Meanwhile the driver's state of arrhythmia, as a common cardiac disease, can be diagnosed too. The test results indicate that the developed real-time driver health detection system can effectively monitor the state of vigilance and the cardiac state, i.e. arrhythmia, of the driver.