System development to control vehicle driver / occupant emotion

The mental/physical condition and negative emotion of vehicle driver/occupant significantly impacts road safety and driving behaviour. This project will develop a seat-embedded vibroacoustic haptic stimulation system to reduce the negative emotion and induce good (positive) emotion and mental condition in the seat occupant/driver via brainwave entrainment.

Participants

• NHK Spring Co., Ltd
• RMIT University

Project background

Driver mood and emotion can change in just a matter of seconds. This can either be from situations or problems or any emotional stimulation. Emotions can either be positive or negative. Both can be a distraction to everything we do, including driving.

Negative emotions come from negative situations or events that can be detrimental to your driving ability (see Fig.1). Some examples are a stressful and tiring day at work, a driver cutting you off on the road, receiving distressing or sad news, or running late for an important meeting or event. The negative emotion will cause the driver to feel angry, stressed, or sad, which has a significant impact on road safety and, in general, quality of life.

The Intelligence Control Systems and Ergonomics team at RMIT University has developed a program to analyse the occupant’s body skeleton. As shown in Fig. 2, this program can detect the key joints of the human body and excavate the features of the human body’s movement.

This method can detect shoplifting using the data of the body structure and suspicious behaviour of shoplifters without facial recognition and the need to record any features related to personal privacy.

Project objectives

This project aims to develop a system to control vehicles (including trucks and heavy vehicles) driver/occupant emotion and mental/physical conditions to enhance road safety and in-vehicle experience.

The system is expected to improve the quality of life and well-being.

The objectives are to:

• develop a driver/occupant measurement/monitoring system for identifying mental/physical conditions, including emotion, stress, alertness, and fatigue, in real-time;
• develop a vibroacoustic stimulation system to control the driver/occupant emotion and mental/physical condition via brainwave entrainment;
• maximise the fast recovery of the vehicle occupant and driver (including the truck and heavy vehicle) mental and physical condition during limited break time;
• validate the developed system performance and effectiveness in driving simulator tests as well as a real field test; and
• develop a prototype of the system for the vehicle with the support of NHK Spring Company to encourage the automotive OEMs to use the system in their current and future products.

Please note …

This page will be a living record of this project. As it matures, hits milestones, etc., we’ll continue to add information, links, images, interviews and more. Watch this space!