AWAKE is a European project, co-funded by the European Commission under the IST initiative of the 5th Framework programme. The objective of AWAKE is to increase traffic safety by reducing the number and the consequences of traffic accidents caused by driver hypovigilance. In order to achieve this objective, AWAKE intends to develop an unobtrusive, reliable system, which will monitor the driver and the environment and will detect in real time hypovigilance, based on multiple parameters. In order to enhance the reliability of the detection system, AWAKE uses both a stochastic Hypovigilance Diagnosis Module (HDM) and a deterministic filter (DHDM). This paper deals with the design of the deterministic hypovigilance diagnosis module, the expert tools and rules to be used within it, as well as on the use cases definition. The selected sensors for the DHDM are: eyelid closure, hand pressure on steering wheel, steering wheel movement, lateral vehicle position, front obstacle distance, TTC (Time To Collision) and TLC (Time to Line Crossing) and emerge also widely in literature. Other measures in the category of psychophysiological measures are: EEG, heart rate, GSR, EMG, etc., and in the category of task performance measures, such as rate of turn and driving speed. There is a general agreement that more than one of the foregoing measures should be used to obtain a reliable detection of hypovigilance. Typically, one or more driver behavioural measures (e.g. slow eyelid closure, handgrip pressure and EEG) are combined with task performance measures (e.g. steering wheel movement, lateral acceleration and lateral position). Because no definitive (hypo)vigilance measure and specific sensor measurements were available, the design of the detection system had to be tentative and exploratory, i.e. based on a hypothetical vigilance 'data' and considering possible, alternative sensory inputs. Nevertheless, much insight could be obtained in the effect of a variety of system aspects (sensory inputs, signal processing characteristics, decision making aspects, etc.) on the hypovigilance prediction performance. In addition, a system design procedure could be developed that can be used for the definitive design process, based on the definitive measure of (hypo)vigilance and the selected sensory inputs, using the models and computer programs that are developed within this study. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
Abstract