Drowsiness Prevention System in Automatic Driving -- Effects of Light Position on Comfortable and Unconscious Wakefulness During Driving

Abstract

With today's automated driving assistance, drivers must always remain awake and aware of road conditions. In an emergency or when having difficulty operating the automated driving system, the driver must immediately assume vehicle control. In particular, autonomous driving is currently used mainly on highways, where drivers are prone to drowsiness due to the monotonous driving environment. Faced with this problem, many researchers and companies have developed drowsiness-prevention driving systems to prevent drivers from falling asleep. However, most conventional methods force people to wake up to unpleasant loud sounds, neglecting the driver's sense of driving experience. This study aims to identify the effects of light position on comfortable and unconscious wakefulness during driving. Specifically, we investigated 20 participants' concentration, reaction time and stimulation experience evaluated by brainwave apparatus, the Mackworth Clock Vigilance Test (MCVT), Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) and the Subjective Evaluation Survey when three stimuli were used: voice only, voice and handle lighting, voice and ambient lighting. The results showed no significant differences between the three stimulation modalities in KSS (p = .082) and MCVT (p =.547). Conversely, the evaluation of audio-visual experience was significantly impacted by the position of lighting by Bonferroni pairwise comparisons: when the handwheel light was displayed, participants felt more surprised than with the other two stimuli (p =.03). The findings of this study compare the effects of different light positions on the audio-visual experience and provide reference suggestions for the visual placement of drowsiness prevention systems.

Keywords: Automatic Driving, Audiovisual Experience, Drowsiness Prevention

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002816