Evaluation of drowsiness during driving based on heart rate analysis - A driving simulation study

It is a common sense that drowsiness during driving could cause traffic accidents. Related researches show that drowsiness occurs when the parasympathetic nerve system predominates over others, and the high frequency (HF) component of heart rate variability (HRV) on an electrocardiogram (ECG) is closely related with the parasympathetic nerve activity, so it is reasonable to evaluate drowsiness based on heart rate analysis. In the driving simulation study, ECG and calculated R-R intervals were put on record during the monitoring process of drowsiness degrees. Relations among different indexes, such as, temporal change of HF band, RR50, Coefficient of Variation of R-R interval (CVRR), and LF to HF ratio (LF/HF) were evaluated as well. The experimental results suggest that there exist certain correlations between drowsiness and HF, RR50, CVRR, or LF/HF, which will be compared in the future with data collected in real driving experiments.