Development of Drowsiness Detection System Based on Respiration Changes Using Heart Rate Monitoring

As driver fatigue has become one of the main causes of traffic fatal accidents, more and more scholars are paying more attention to the issue which is related to safety. There are two main types of anti-fatigue driving systems: the first one is to capture driver's face image by camera to estimate the degree of drowsiness based on the change of the image. The second one is to estimate the degree of drowsiness based on the driver's heart rates. This paper develops a system based on heart rate monitoring, which calculates driver's respiration by detecting electrocardiogram, and then infers the driver's drowsiness degree from the respiration changes. Although the system has the disadvantages that is directly contacted with skin and is influenced by the driver's actions, it has lower-cost and higher accuracy than the system that using heart rate directly. After verification experiment, the system is confirmed to have the ability to determine the driver's drowsiness effectively. Hence, the system has contribution to solve the driver fatigue problems.