US 7,532,964 B2
Driver seat system and awakening device
Etsunori Fujita, Hiroshima (Japan); Yumi Ogura, Hiroshima (Japan); Naoki Ochiai, Hiroshima (Japan); Yasunori Noto, Fukuoka (Japan); Tiejun Miao, Fukuoka (Japan); and Toshiyuki Shimizu, Fukuoka (Japan)
Assigned to Delta Tooling Co., Ltd., Hiroshima (Japan)
Filed on May 20, 2004, as Appl. No. 10/849,769.
Prior Publication US 2004/0260440 A1, Dec. 23, 2004
Int. Cl. G06F 7/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 701—36  [701/49; 340/575; 340/576; 600/300; 600/485; 600/500; 600/504; 600/534; 600/529] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A driver seat system comprising:
a monitor for monitoring a human condition of a driver, and
an awakening device for making the driver recover a wakeful state or awakening state by starting operation when received a predictive signal for fall-asleep from said monitor, the predictive signal for fall-asleep being a signal when an energy metabolism makes transition from an active state into a sleep state,
wherein said awakening device includes a mechanism for stimulating a pressure sense of the driver and wherein said monitor includes a bio-signal measurement instrument for measuring a bio-signal of the driver, and a bio-signal analyzer for analyzing a bio-signal data collected by said bio-signal measurement instrument, said bio-signal analyzer including:
a bio-signal peak value detection means for detecting a peak value for each cycle of an original waveform of the bio-signal data;
a power value calculation means for calculating a difference between the peak value at an upper limit side and the peak value at a lower limit side for each certain time range using respective peak values obtained by said bio-signal peak value detection means to thereby set the difference as a power value;
a gradient calculation means for obtaining a gradient of the power value with regard to time base in a certain time range by performing slide calculation the prescribed number of times at a prescribed overlap rate with regard to the prescribed time;
a comparative determination means for comparatively determining whether a sudden drop state of the gradient of the power value exists or not in time-series change in the gradient of the power value obtained by performing slide calculation with said gradient calculation means to thereby determine a time range in which the sudden drop state appears to be the predictive signal for fall-asleep from the active state into the sleep state; and
an output means for outputting the predictive signal for fall-asleep from the active state to the sleep state detected by said comparative determination means.