Mental state monitoring system for the professional drivers based on Heart Rate Variability analysis and Case-Based Reasoning

The consequences of tiredness, drowsiness, stress and lack of concentration caused by a variety of different factors such as illness, sleep depletion, drugs and alcohol is a serious problem in traffic and when operating industrial equipment. A system that recognizes the state of the driver and e.g. suggests breaks when stress level is too high or driver is too tired would enable large savings and reduces accident. So, the aim of the project is to develop an intelligent system that can monitor drivers´ stress depending on psychological and behavioral conditions/status using Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Here, we have proposed a solution using Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) to diagnose individual driver´s level of stress. The system also considers feedback from the driver´s on how well the test was performed. The validation of the approach is based on close collaboration with experts and measurements from 18 drivers from Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) are used as reference.