Use Case: Mental State – Monitoring attention in safety-critical workplaces and vehicles

Your challenge

How alert are people during monotonous car rides or repetitive work processes? Can a person in an autonomous vehicle or a pilot in the cockpit take control again at any time after a period of sleep? These questions must be taken into account when designing safety-critical workplaces or innovative mobility concepts.

Your benefit

Our mobile EEG systems make it possible to measure attention and fatigue—directly in real-world settings. This allows us to analyze changes in attention during monotonous tasks based on measured brain activity. The data can be used to conduct risk assessments, which can then inform measures to make workplaces safer, for example. The EEG data can also be used to evaluate and optimize driver assistance systems designed to monitor the driver’s condition. This could help make (semi-)autonomous driving safer.

For EEG recording, the researchers are using a mobile sensor system they developed themselves. The accompanying self-adhesive electrode patch (“trEEGrid”) records EEG data with high signal quality. Intelligent machine learning algorithms from the Institute´s Oldenburg Branch, among other tools, are used for the subsequent analysis of the data.

Extras

Our solutions for recording a mobile EEG could also be used in other areas of application in the future, such as for a mobile sleep lab at home.

The sensor and software demonstrators mentioned here are intended exclusively for research and development purposes (research use only). They are not CE-certified as medical devices, and no performance evaluation within the meaning of the Medical Device Regulation has been or will be carried out. Data and analyses are not used in diagnostic or therapeutic decisions.