Conference Proceeding

Asymmetric Properties of Heart Rate Variability to Assess Operator Fatigue

---

Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the suitability of heart rate recordings for establishing a reliable connection to well-defined fatigue and performance measures in order to estimate fatigue in industrial and transportation applications. An overnight driving simulation scenario with partial sleep deprivation was utilized to induce strong fatigue. An experiment trial was divided into repeated sessions, each of which consisted of a driving performance and two vigilance tasks. Heart rate (HR) was recorded over the entire experiment; HRmeasures were derived and correlated against measures that were established from driving and vigilance task performance and that represent various aspects of operator fatigue. In a previous report (Hefner et al. 2009) we presented on the basis of the data of one volunteer that multiple fatigue measures correlate well with different expressions of heart rate variability (HRV), especially with longterm HRV derived from Poincaré plots. In this work, we intensify the Poincaré analysis by dividing the distribution of HR data in different accelerating and decelerating segments and by establishing properties of asymmetry between these segments. We also show that most of the properties of long-term HRV correlate well with specific fatigue measures for a group of 5 volunteers despite their large inter-individual differences in HR-to-fatigue correlations.

How to Cite:

Heinze, C. & Trutschel, U. & Edwards, D. & Sirois, B. & Golz, M., (2011) “Asymmetric Properties of Heart Rate Variability to Assess Operator Fatigue”, Driving Assessment Conference 6(2011), 475-481. doi: https://doi.org/10.17077/drivingassessment.1435

Rights: Copyright © 2011 the author(s)