Wireless dry EEG for drowsiness detection

Fatigue is a well recognized safety concern for drivers and other industrial workers who must stay alert and attentive for long periods of time. Currently, drowsiness detectors using EEG technology exist but are cumbersome and unreliable. The large number of standard EEG channels requires extensive wiring, while the conventional wet electrodes cause discomfort in long-term monitoring. We propose a simple and cheap one-channel drowsiness detection technology suitable for detecting drowsiness in a variety of environments. Our design incorporates pronged dry-AgCl electrodes in a headband harness, which eliminates the discomfort of gel electrodes while obtaining strong signals from hair covered areas of the scalp. The electrodes send signals to a wireless base unit which then transfers the signal to a computer where it is analyzed using an unique algorithm. With solely this one-channel system, we obtained strong EEG signals from which alpha, beta and theta waves can be observed.