Correlation of Heavy-Truck Driver Fatigue with Vehicle-Based Control Measures

The driving performance of 17 heavy-truck drivers was monitored under alert and fatigued conditions on a closed-circuit track to determine whether driver fatigue could be indirectly measured in the vehicle control inputs or outputs. Data were recorded for various potential physiological indicators of fatigue (EEG, heart rate and a subjective evaluation of drowsiness), for vehicle speed, steering, and accelerator pedal movements, and for vehicle position on the track. The objective was to determine whether a simple set of vehicle-based control measures correlated with the fatigue indicators. Correlations between other vehicle-based measures reported in the literature and the fatigue indicators were also calculated. The results indicate that there are measures which correlate sufficiently well with driver fatigue that they could potentially be used for an unobtrusive vehicle-based fatigue-detection algorithm.