Monitoring Driver Physiological Parameters for Improved Safety

Driver error is a major cause of vehicle accidents and fatalities. Many of these accidents are related to impaired driver cognition because of fatigue, drowsiness, stress, or mental workload. Physiological parameters such as heart rate and respiration rate are useful for monitoring the cognitive state of a vehicle driver. The Delphi Passive Occupant Detection System (PODS) is passive, non-invasive and non-intrusive. We studied the PODS AC output to explore its utility for measuring occupant physiological parameters in a static environment. We demonstrated that with suitable filtering, amplifying, and signal processing, PODS AC signals can give respiration rate, heart rate and heart rate variability.