Drowsiness-detecting earbuds could help drivers stay safe at the wheel
Drowsiness plays a major role in traffic crashes, injuries and deaths, and is considered the most critical hazard in construction and mining. A wearable device that can monitor fatigue could help protect drivers, pilots and machine operators from the life-threatening dangers of fatigue.
With this aim, researchers at UC Berkeley are developing techniques to detect signs of drowsiness in the brain, using a pair of prototype earbuds to perform electroencephalography (EEG) and other physiological measurements. Describing the device in Nature Communications, the team reports successful tests on volunteers.
“Wireless earbuds are something we already wear all the time,” says senior author Rikky Muller in a press statement. “That’s what makes ear EEG such a compelling approach to wearables. It doesn’t require anything extra. I was inspired when I bought my first pair of Apple’s AirPods in 2017. I immediately thought, ‘What an amazing platform for neural recording’.”
