This report presents a research study plan on human subjects – the influence of stress and alcohol in simulated traffic situations under an H2020 project named SIMUSAFE. This research study focuses on road-users’, i.e., car drivers, motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians, behaviour in relation to retrospective studies, where interaction between the users are considered. Here, the study includes sample size, inclusion/exclusion criteria, detailed study plan, protocols, potential test scenarios and all related ethical issues. The study plan has been included in a national ethics application and received approval for implementation.

The objective of the present investigation performed within the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) program is to demonstrate the effect of further recent improvements of the breath-based nondispersive infrared sensor technology in realistic settings. More specifically, sensor systems installed in vehicles have been tested by: a) exposing them to a controlled, realistic breathing pattern from artificially generated gas pulses mimicking that of an intoxicated driver and b) human subjects entering a test vehicle and performing a simulated drive while under the influence of alcohol. The tests with artificial gas pulses correspond to human directed forced exhalation from positions up 70 cm from the sensor. The tests provide experimental evidence that in-vehicle, driver breath alcohol determination is feasible with a single sensor positioned at the top of the steering column. The human subject study was designed to test both active and passive detection modes. Good correlation to the breath alcohol reference instrument was found in both cases over the full range of alcohol intoxication exceeding 0.08 percent (the legal limit in most U.S. states). Time to detection is a remaining challenge of the passive mode but is manageable by requesting an active breath in the absence of reliable data. The results illustrate the feasibility of using breath-based NDIR based sensors in different operational modes. In the active mode, a simple exhalation directed towards the sensor is enough for a test to be approved and the alcohol content quantified. In the passive mode, the operator does not actively interact with the sensor. In a real-world scenario, sensors set to a passive mode could be used for driver monitoring and to assist the driver to choose a smarter option when alcohol is detected. The overall conclusion from the present investigation is that in-vehicle breath-based alcohol determination is feasible with the current state of the art sensor technology.

Improving safer transport includes individual and collective behavioural aspects and their interaction. A system that can monitor and evaluate the human cognitive and physical capacities based on human factor measurement is often beneficial to improve safety in driving condition. However, analysis and evaluation of human factor measurement i.e. demographics, behaviour and physiology in real-time is challenging. This paper presents a methodology for cloud-based data analysis, categorization and metrics correlation in real-time through a H2020 project called SimuSafe. Initial implementation of this methodology shows a step-by-step approach which can handle huge amount of data with variation and verity in the cloud.

Embedded Sensor Systems for Health (ESS-H) is a research profile at Mälardalen University (MDH) in Sweden, where researchers are working together with several industrial partners, and healthcare organizations. The aim of the research profile is to develop novel embedded sensor systems promoting health. The sensor systems are developed with the aim to monitor health conditions and follow health trends of elderly at home, and also for monitoring of drivers and machine operators in order to achieve a safer work environment. Several companies are involved in the work in various ways; providing specialist competence, providing equipment and access to advanced laboratory settings, and also working as adjunct professors and providing industrial PhD students to the environment. Healthcare providers are involved in the work, providing end-user perspective to the work. This includes to provide real user-driven challenges, and involvement in all development phases.

OBJECTIVE:The research objective of the present investigation is to demonstrate the present status of passive in-vehicle driver breath alcohol detection and highlight the necessary conditions for large-scale implementation of such a system. Completely passive detection has remained a challenge mainly because of the requirements on signal resolution combined with the constraints of vehicle integration. The work is part of the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) program aiming at massive deployment of alcohol sensing systems that could potentially save thousands of American lives annually.METHOD:The work reported here builds on earlier investigations, in which it has been shown that detection of alcohol vapor in the proximity of a human subject may be traced to that subject by means of simultaneous recording of carbon dioxide (CO2) at the same location. Sensors based on infrared spectroscopy were developed to detect and quantify low concentrations of alcohol and CO2. In the present investigation, alcohol and CO2 were recorded at various locations in a vehicle cabin while human subjects were performing normal in-step procedures and driving preparations. A video camera directed to the driver position was recording images of the driver's upper body parts, including the face, and the images were analyzed with respect to features of significance to the breathing behavior and breath detection, such as mouth opening and head direction.RESULTS:Improvement of the sensor system with respect to signal resolution including algorithm and software development, and fusion of the sensor and camera signals was successfully implemented and tested before starting the human study. In addition, experimental tests and simulations were performed with the purpose of connecting human subject data with repeatable experimental conditions. The results include occurrence statistics of detected breaths by signal peaks of CO2 and alcohol. From the statistical data, the accuracy of breath alcohol estimation and timing related to initial driver routines (door opening, taking a seat, door closure, buckling up, etc.) can be estimated. The investigation confirmed the feasibility of passive driver breath alcohol detection using our present system. Trade-offs between timing and sensor signal resolution requirements will become critical. Further improvement of sensor resolution and system ruggedness is required before the results can be industrialized.CONCLUSIONS:It is concluded that a further important step toward completely passive detection of driver breath alcohol has been taken. If required, the sniffer function with alcohol detection capability can be combined with a subsequent highly accurate breath test to confirm the driver's legal status using the same sensor device. The study is relevant to crash avoidance, in particular driver monitoring systems and driver-vehicle interface design.

This paper presents a case-based classification system for alcohol detection using physiological parameters. Here, four physiological parameters e.g. Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Respiration Rate (RR), Finger Temperature (FT), and Skin Conductance (SC) are used in a Case-based reasoning (CBR) system to detect alcoholic state. In this study, the participants are classified into two groups as drunk or sober. The experimental work shows that using the CBR classification approach the obtained accuracy for individual physiological parameters e.g., HRV is 85

Breath alcohol screening is important for traffic safety, access control and other areas of health promotion. A family of sensor devices useful for these purposes is being developed and evaluated. This paper is focusing on algorithms for the determination of breath alcohol concentration in diluted breath samples using carbon dioxide to compensate for the dilution. The examined algorithms make use of signal averaging, weighting and personalization to reduce estimation errors. Evaluation has been performed by using data from a previously conducted human study. It is concluded that these features in combination will significantly reduce the random error compared to the signal averaging algorithm taken alone.

Background: Many patients seeking emergency care are under the influence of alcohol, which in many cases implies a differential diagnostic problem. For this reason early objective alcohol screening is of importance not to falsely assign the medical condition to intake of alcohol and thus secure a correct medical assessment.Objective: At two emergency departments, demonstrate the feasibility of accurate breath alcohol testing in emergency patients with different levels of cooperation.Method: Assessment of the correlation and ratio between the venous blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and the breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) measured in adult emergency care patients. The BrAC was measured with a breathalyzer prototype based on infrared spectroscopy, which uses the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO(2)) in the exhaled air as a quality indicator.Result: Eighty-eight patients enrolled (mean 45 years, 53 men, 35 women) performed 201 breath tests in total. For 51% of the patients intoxication from alcohol or tablets was considered to be the main reason for seeking medical care. Twenty-seven percent of the patients were found to have a BAC of <0.04 mg/g. With use of a common conversion factor of 2100:1 between BAC and BrAC an increased agreement with BAC was found when the level of pCO(2) was used to estimate the end-expiratory BrAC (underestimation of 6%, r = 0.94), as compared to the BrAC measured in the expired breath (underestimation of 26%, r = 0.94). Performance of a forced or a non-forced expiration was not found to have a significant effect (p = 0.09) on the bias between the BAC and the BrAC estimated with use of the level of CO2. A variation corresponding to a BAC of 0.3 mg/g was found between two sequential breath tests, which is not considered to be of clinical significance.Conclusion: With use of the expired pCO(2) as a quality marker the BrAC can be reliably assessed in emergency care patients regardless of their cooperation, and type and length of the expiration.

In screening applications there is a need for improved breath alcohol analyzers. Accuracy, specificity, usability, and through-put are critical to the device performance. Objective: To characterize the critical performance of a new contactless breath alcohol analyzer. Methods: The device is characterized by measurements using artificial breath gas and human subjects. Breath sampling is performed in ambient air using carbon dioxide as a biomarker. Results: Resolution and inter-individual variation, response time, and specificity were shown to meet the requirements of industrial standards. The feasibility of contactless measurement was demonstrated. Conclusions: The new device exhibits sufficient performance in moderately diluted breath samples. Further work is underway to reach the objective of unobtrusive breath alcohol analysis.

The study objective was to evaluate a novel method and technology for unobtrusive determination of breath alcohol in relation to current industrial accuracy standards.The methodology uses carbon dioxide as a tracer gas detected by sensor technology based on infrared spectroscopy.Part one of the investigation was to analyse the performance of hand-held prototype devices and included tests of resolution, unit-to-unit variation during calibration, response to alcohol containing gas pulses created with a wet gas simulator, and cross sensitivity to other substances.In part two of the study, 30 human participants provided 1465 breath tests in both unobtrusive and obtrusive use modes.The results of both parts of the study indicate that the prototype devices exceeded present industrial accuracy requirements.The proposed methodology and technology eliminate the previous contradiction between unobtrusiveness and high accuracy.

Measurement of breath alcohol concentration is strongly influenced by timing and the breathing pattern. In particular, shallow expiration and hyperventilation leads to underestimation of the breath alcohol concentration. In the present study, expirograms of alcohol, water and carbon dioxide were recorded in 30 healthy individuals at various breathing manoeuvres (tidal volume, slow maximum and vital capacity expiration, breath holding, and hyperventilation). Estimation of the end expiratory alcohol concentration with the use of simultaneously measured carbon dioxide was shown to reverse the tendency of underestimation at shallow expiration and hyperventilation. These findings indicate that breath alcohol estimations can be performed at shorter expiration time and reduced expired volume compared to existing alcolocks. This is believed to improve their usability and to prevent a possible route for manipulation.

Piezoelectric thin film ultrasonic transducers were realised and tested for short range distance measurements. Displacements in air and water as a function of frequency were modelled by Comsol Multiphysics finite element modelling (FEM) and transducer configurations with a two electrode layout were manufactured to enable larger displacements than with the conventional design. The transducer was fabricated on a silicon wafer by chemical solution deposition (CSD) with total PZT (Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3) thickness of 2 µm. Subsequently, a cavity underneath the PZT was wet etched creating a bending membrane with a total thickness of ∼13 µm. The displacements of the transducers as a function of frequency were modelled and measured by fiber-optic laser vibrometer. The effective piezoelectric d33 coefficient of 300 nm/V and 144 nm/V in air and 48 nm/V and 18 nm/V in water was obtained for 260 × 260 µm2 and 390 × 390 µm2 membranes, respectively. The accuracy of the modelled resonance frequencies both in air and water was relatively good, of ∼4-13% and ∼5-20%, respectively.

NORD-pie will form the basis for a qualified piezo-MEMS service including feasibility studies, design and production. The project will demonstrate the availability of small scale and high quality i ...

Alcolocks and alcohol screening devices are becoming commonplace, and their use is expected to grow rapidly with cost reduction and improved usability. A new breath analyzer prototype is demonstrated, with the prospects of eliminating the mouthpiece, reducing expiration time and volume, improving long-term stability, and reducing life cycle cost. Simultaneous CO measurements compensate for the sample dilution and unsaturated expiration. Infrared transmission spectroscopy is used for both the alcohol and CO measurement, yet the entire system is contained within a small handheld unit. Experimental results are reported on the device sensitivity, linearity, resolution, and influence from varying measuring distance. The correlation between early and full-time sampling was established in 60 subjects. Basic concept verification was obtained, whereas resolution and selectivity still needs to be improved. Further improvements are expected by system optimization and integration.

The quantification of breath alcohol concentration is considered important input in medical diagnosis and triage at emergency medical care. In many severe emergency cases, for example head injuries, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, or psychological illness, the medical condition of the patient can be mistaken for alcohol intoxication. In cases like these, quantification of the alcohol concentration would facilitate and speed up the diagnostic procedure. However, the use of breath analyzers in medical care is limited as the state-of-the-art devices require active involvement of the patient, and expiratory volume and flow incompatible with patients respiratory function. This paper presents a prototype of a handheld breath analyzer based on infrared spectroscopy which does not require active involvement from the patient and also provides direct feedback on the quality of the breath test by measurement of the expired PCO2.