A smartphone-based heart rate variability analysis system for vehicle drivers

The illness of a vehicle driver can pose a serious threat to the road safety. In this paper, a smartphone is combined with an electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement circuit to accomplish a portable and low-cost mobile heart rate monitoring device for vehicle drivers. By using 3G wireless networks and cloud services, the ECG data can be stored in and further analyzed by a remote server. The server performs time- and frequency-domain heart rate variability (HRV) analyses and issues an alert to the client in case of detecting a heart rhythm abnormality like sinus tachycardia, sinus bradycardia, or paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). The global positioning system (GPS) and the Google map are incorporated in the software functionality to pinpoint the client´s location when a rescue mission is required. The goodness of the HRV analyses is tested by using ECG data from subjects with and without PAF. The functionality of the proposed system is demonstrated by monitoring the heart rhythm status of a vehicle driver during a road trip.