The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Drowsy driver data acquisition system
Author:	Norat, Rafael
View Online:	njit-etd2000-006 (x, 52 pages ~ 2.0 MB pdf)
Department:	Biomedical Engineering Committee
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Biomedical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Niver, Edip (Committee chair) Tavantzis, John (Committee member) Akduman, Ibrahim (Committee member) Mouskos, Kyriacos (Committee member) Malik, Raashid Ahmed (Committee member)
Date:	2000-08
Keywords:	Drowsy Driver EEG Signal activity Allpha rhythm activity
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	This thesis focuses on detecting the drowsiness of a driver based on differentiation of the EEG signal activity between the eyes open and eyes closed states. Here, it is observed that there is a significant increase 'in a 10 Hz component of the alpha rhythm activity when the subject under test closes his / her eyes. This phenomenon was observed when electrodes were attached to the occipital region. A more desirable approach is to develop a non-intrusive measurement based on a multiturn differential coil combination utilizing a low noise high gain amplifier. The system developed here used an 80,000 turn 2 coil differential combination. A 10 Hz band pass amplifier with a gain of 68 db confirmed the assumed changes when electrodes were used. However, when differential coils were used (80,000 differential coils), the system failed to validate the expected changes. Due to insufficient sensitivity, it was impossible to reach a conclusion and determine whether the increased 10 Hz activity corresponded to brain signals or increased feedback gain resulting in an internal oscillation within the high gain amplification of the developed system. Further studies are suggested to reduce the losses due to magnetic core material and design an amplifier with a lower noise figure. The system developed utilized a DaqCard-1200 data acquisition card and MATLAB for signal processing.