An arousal level judging apparatus has a skin potential level (SPL) detection device, a potential change detection device for detecting occurrance and convergence of a pulse of the signal from the SPL detection device, the pulse being caused by skin potential response (SPR), a storing device for storing the SPL value as a reference value, and a comparator for comparing SPL with the reference value to detect a SPL decrease to detect an arousal level decrease of a driver, etc. The reference value is renewed at every occurrance of SPR. When the SPL value indicates that the arousal level of the driver has been decreased, an alarm is caused to wake the driver up.
A cardiac rate measuring apparatus which is intended to measure the cardiac rate of a driver without restraining motions of the driver. Skin tremors occurring on the surface of skin of the body are detected, and level peak values of the skin tremors are held to generate an envelope waveform signal as a cardiac rate signal corresponding to the cardiac rate of the driver.
A remote control system, particularly for remotely controlling industrial equipment, has a sensor that detects the operator's safety-relevant medical data and transmits them as a control signal to a control circuit in a transmitter or receiver. The control circuit triggers a predefinable control sequence when the value of the control signal exceeds or falls below at least one predefinable value. A malfunction, especially of the "human component" of the total system, can be reliably detected as soon as it becomes safety relevant, i.e., as soon as there is a danger that the operator might no longer be able to control the industrial equipment properly and reliably with the remote control system.
A driver's arousal level estimating apparatus for a vehicle includes a Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) signal processing section for obtaining respective frequency component powers by applying a frequency conversion to displacement quantities successively detected of the vehicle, an evaluation value calculating section for calculating an evaluation value from a ratio of an average value of the respective calculated frequency powers and a maximum value of frequency component powers in a specified frequency domain containing a predetermined lateral fluctuation frequency characteristic of a lowered arousal level, and a judging section for judging a driver's arousal level based on the evaluation value.
A waking degree maintaining apparatus of this invention estimates a waking degree of a person on the basis of a correlation between brain waves and the reaction time or between the blinking frequency and the reaction time, and discriminates a drop in waking degree on the basis of the obtained waking degree. A stimulus according to the waking degree is presented to maintain the person in a waking state of a predetermined level. The waking degree of a person is recovered to a normal state, not only in a low waking degree state, but also in an over-stained state.
A low-cost system for detecting a drowsy condition of a driver of a vehicle includes a video imaging camera located in the vehicle and oriented to generate images of a driver of the vehicle. The system also includes a processor for processing the images acquired by the video imaging camera. The processor monitors an eye and determines whether the eye is in an open position or a closed state. The processor further determines a time proportion of eye closure as the proportion of a time interval that the eye is in the closed position, and determines a driver drowsiness condition when the time proportion of eye closure exceeds a threshold value.
