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Thursday March 8, 2007
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The road can be a dangerous place; people change their pants while driving, apply makeup or zone out on their cell phones, but falling asleep at the wheel can make for a particularly harrowing experience. Thankfully, the country that brought us giant robots is on the case and researchers in Japan are developing a car seat with embedded technology that can sense when we're dozing off.
Up to this point, drowsiness detection systems required you to attach a variety of sensors to yourself for the car to detect signs of sleep, but that proves cumbersome and unrealistic for wide usage in automobiles. However, these new "smart seats" are equipped with a pair of pulse-monitoring pressure sensors in the seat-back and a set of respiration-monitoring sensors underneath that focus on the changes in pulse and respiration that occur 10 minutes before falling asleep. They also claim it'll work even if the occupant is wearing heavy layers of clothing so those who favor puffy shirts need not worry.
Does this mean we can also expect some sort of alarm system or mild electric shocks to wake us up? Well, they've yet to develop a response for when the occupant falls asleep but are working on an alarm function that would automatically go off when the seat detects a visit from the Sandman (May I suggest the Superman theme I wake up to every morning?). Researchers hope to make the smart seat commercially available in 5 years. [via Pink Tentacle]
Post by Andre Bermudez
Posted By:
Gearlog
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March 8, 2007 2:03 PM
I've had the displeasure of driving while incredibly sleepy before, and I hated it. For a while, my girlfriend lived in Philly and I lived outside of Washington DC, and it was a 2 hour drive each way at least. We only saw each other on weekends, which meant 2 hours there on Friday night after work and 2 hours back on Sunday night, usually late in both cases. Sometimes I'd pick her up and bring her back my way, so make that 4 hours each way. It was a travel headache, and led to many nights with very very little sleep and having to be on the road for 2-4 hours.
While I'm really interested in technology like this, and while it's great for the driver who's mildly drowsy and has a long commute home from the office, I gotta toss out that if you're really REALLY sleepy on the road, the best possible thing you can and should do is to remove yourself from danger and not endanger everyone on the road with you and pull over and take a nap. Your life, or the life of the person in the car next to you, just isn't worth trying to get where you're going a little faster or sooner. :)
March 9, 2007 11:11 AM
I think your absolutely right. I've read a variety of studies showing that those who drive sleep deprived are at the same disadvantage as individuals who are above the legal blood alcohol content. I can attest to this in my laughable attempts to finish research papers at 4am and can't even begin to imagine the disaster that would ensue had I gone behind the wheel in those instances. I can see this device being useful by letting drivers know that they're getting sleepy and need to get off the road.