title: Vigilance monitoring for operator safety: A simulation study on highway driving.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alertness of individuals operating vehicles, aircrafts, and machinery is a pre-requisite for safety of the individual and for avoiding economic losses. In this paper, we present a new technique for determining the alertness level of the operator and elaborate the methodology for the specific case of highway driving
  
  
  METHODS
  Our hypothesis is that the time derivative of force exerted by the driver at the vehicle-human interfaces can be used to construct a signature of individual driving styles and to discern different levels of alertness
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, we present experimental results corroborating this hypothesis and introduce a parameter, 'spikiness index,' for the time series data of the force derivative to quantify driver alertness
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The low cost, ruggedness, and low-volume data processing requirements of the proposed technique give it a competitive edge over existing predominantly image processing based vigilance monitoring systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Desai
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Haque
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000523:psychology*; D000465:Algorithms; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology*; D001336:Automobiles; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012449:Safety; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis