Activities
A set of preliminary studies, both in the leather field and in the complementary subjects – electronics, processing systems, and simulations.
Regarding the materials, the tanning process and the methods that are recognized by the automotive industry will be assessed, and the bibliography related to the incorporation of conductive materials will be analyzed. The operating conditions for leather will be defined, namely in its application on a steering wheel and other areas of the passenger compartment.
Regarding the acquisition and processing of physiological signals, a bibliographic analysis will be carried out that will include methods of quantification of the signal quality. These will serve as the foundation for the implementation of an acquisition prototype with an adaptive signal conditioning phase.
Finally, regarding the simulation, an analysis of the state-of-the-art in simulators will be carried out, with particular attention to those that incorporate physiological feedback in the simulation.
Activity 2 specifies the requirements and technical specifications that have to be taken into account in the construction of the prototypes and in the tanning processes.
Existing legislation and standards in the automotive industry will also be reviewed, and the general data protection regulation regarding the handling of physiological data in the context of fatigue detection, and well-being and health monitoring status will be surveyed.
The representative use cases for the project will be specified.
Research of the technical-scientific developments in the various angles of the project:
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- In materials, the formulations of conductive materials to be incorporated into the leather;
- In electronics, the feedback system for the adaptive acquisition and simultaneous measurement of the contact;
- The automatic signal processing, the adaptive filtering system, and the architecture of the neural networks that best suit the stochastic series under study;
- The driving simulator will allow the incorporation of the various use-cases that will serve to validate the system. This is the stage where the use-cases will be detailed and the entire story-board will be formulated.
Development of the studied methods, which involves the incorporation of conductive materials in stages of the tanning process.
Alternative fatigue measurement systems will be implemented in the simulator, including an Intel® RealSenseTM camera, which allows the measurement of facial features, and the measurement of the steering wheel angle with an inertial unit. The cockpit will be developed in this activity.
Laboratory tests and subsequent industrial tests of the solutions developed.
The performance tests will include simulation tests in different locations and with different populations, in order to validate the system’s universality. After performing the first representative set of tests, there is a possibility of optimizing and refining the solutions found, so that a new test can be performed with the same population. The entire process will be scientifically evaluated, and procedures will be created to allow its reproducibility.
Actions to promote and disseminate the project’s results.
During this activity, research papers will be written for publication in scientific journals which, together with conferences and seminars, will contribute to the dissemination of the acquired knowledge.
Technical and financial management of the project and its monitoring by the scientific team (CTIC, IST, and Universidade de Aveiro), and the technical team (CardioID and Couro Azul).
The two teams that make up the consortium will be responsible for monitoring and managing the tasks, according to their distribution.