These slides explain it all! Basically, we have been trying to capture physiological changes associated with getting tired / falling asleep. The goal here is to have an embedded system sensing changes in heart rate over time, just to warn sleepy drivers about the potential of falling asleep while they are driving.
Progress this far: we are seeing some correlation between heart rate variability and sleepiness, but need more statistics. Device-wise, we have a test system using ECG to get RR intervals and changes in them. We have Physionet’s heart rate variability tools running on a Beaglebone black, but we still need exhaustive testing to confirm reliability.
And the current implementation is split over two Blacks because we were developing in parallel, but that can be fixed in a few days’ work (not happening until finals…)
Its very cool to see a physiological indication of potential drowsiness. If we can confirm reliability, we can warn people who might be pushing themselves to keep on the road!
