Interaction between Thermal Comfort and Arousal Level of Drivers in Relation to the Changes in Indoor Temperature

Abstract

Driving comfort and driving safety are essential factors for drivers. As the environment of vehicle affects the comfort sensation and the arousal level of the drivers, it is necessary to contemplate the way to design of environmental factors inside vehicle. In this study, we focus on the thermal factors inside vehicle, and we aim to design a thermal environment which can improve both the thermal comfort and the arousal level of drivers. In our previous research, we showed that the changes in indoor temperature have possibility to improve both the comfort sensation and the arousal level of driver by analyzing the subjective parameters. To clarify the design requirements, it is needed to evaluate the thermal comfort and the arousal level of drivers continuously, quantitatively and separately. So, we focused on the physiological parameters which can be measured continuously, we investigated the relationship between the thermal comfort sensation, the arousal level of drivers based on facial expression and the physiological parameters, such as Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) when the indoor temperature changed. As a result, we showed that it is possible to evaluate the thermal comfort sensation and the arousal level of drivers quantitatively, continuously and separately by using those physiological parameters