Reading the human in the driver seat

Unobtrusive physiological sensors that seamlessly integrate in the automotive environment provide a novel way to measure driver’s health and well-being. A driver pilot was conducted to test the accuracy of some new unobtrusive and wearable physiological sensors that currently are under development. Six drivers drove a pre-defined route twice, once during light and once during dark conditions. The drive included different road types to be able to identify possible differences in measurement precision. Heart rate measurements were done using a standard ECG method as well as via two types of unobtrusive measurements. These included a watch equipped with a photo-plethysmograph and a driver seat that was equipped with capacitive ECG sensors. Skin conductance levels were measured by means of dry sensors at the finger and a wristwatch was used for unobtrusive skin conductance measurements. Results show high intraclass correlation between the unobtrusive and reference physiological measurements while driving in different conditions. This evaluation demonstrates the potential for unobtrusive tracking of driver’s health and well-being in the car.