An unobtrusive non-contact capacitive ECG (cECG) system was designed and developed at RBG labs, IIT Madras to monitor driver fatigue and health on-line. This is a novel system to capacitively measure ECG signals without direct skin contact. Capacitive electrodes are a dry, non-contact alternative to conventional Ag/AgCl bioelectric electrodes, preventing the need of an electrolyte gel. These dry electrodes, enable ECG measurement through insulating materials like clothes shown in Fig 2. ECG signal from the person is transferred to the capacitive plates through their clothes. A single lead cECG system will be sufficient to monitor driver’s performance behind the wheel and it can also be used as a purpose of pre-screening tool and signature in the automotive and healthcare industry.
Coherence studies between EEG and cECG show that cognitive fatigue can be estimated by using cECG signals. Heart rate variability shows significant changes during driver fatigue under simulated driving conditions. Validation of cECG with conventional ECG was performed in considering cECG as a good replacement of conventional ECG to detect non-contact ubiquitous driver performance monitoring.
References
1. Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Rahul Bhardwaj, Can cECG be an unobtrusive surrogate to determine cognitive state of driver?, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Volume 58, 2018, Pages 797-806, ISSN 1369-8478, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2018.07.011.
2. R. Bhardwaj and V. Balasubramanian, "Viability of Cardiac Parameters Measured Unobtrusively Using Capacitive Coupled Electrocardiography (cECG) to Estimate Driver Performance," in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 19, no. 11, pp. 4321-4330, 1 June1, 2019. doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2019.2898450
3. R. Bhardwaj, P. Natarajan and V. Balasubramanian, "Study to Determine the Effectiveness of Deep Learning Classifiers for ECG Based Driver Fatigue Classification," 2018 IEEE 13th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), Rupnagar, India, 2018, pp. 98-102. doi: 10.1109/ICIINFS.2018.8721391
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