Assessment of driver´s driving performance and alertness using EEG-based fuzzy neural networks

Traffic fatalities in recent years have become a serious concern to our society. Accidents caused by drivers´ drowsiness have a high fatality rate due to the decline of drivers´ abilities in perception, recognition, and vehicle control abilities while sleepy. Preventing such an accident requires a technique for detecting, estimating, and predicting the level of alertness of a driver and a mechanism to maintain the driver´s maximum performance of driving. This paper proposed a system that combines electroencephalogram (EEG) power spectra estimation, independent component analysis and fuzzy neural network models to estimate drivers´ cognitive state in a dynamic virtual-reality-based driving environment. Experimental results show that the quantitative driving performance can be accurately and successfully estimated through analyzing driver´s EEG signals by the proposed system.