Properly identifying a car passenger’s arousal level has been a long-term challenge for those in the automotive industry. Whether the passenger is in a state of low arousal (drowsiness) or high arousal (road rage), automakers seek a way to determine arousal level in order to help the passenger reach a more neutral level of arousal. There are systems in place to monitor arousal levels, what remains missing is a system that can directly influence the passenger’s arousal level. Previous experiments have shown that simple driving tasks would take the participants multiple hours to reach a state of low arousal and there was much variability due to a participant’s ability to cope with fatigue. Our goal is to design a protocol that will be used to induce the passenger into a low arousal state at a much quicker pace than previous experiments and to create a system that will measure the passenger’s arousal level as a result of this protocol.

Team Members

Sriraman Iyengar, Vikram Pandian, Philip Sarkis, Zariyat Ahmed, Vignesh Krishnamurthy, Tanmay Sharma