Website: http://harken.ibv.org/
The HARKEN system is an innovative and technologically challenging system. A series of unobtrusive sensors in the seat, as well as in the seat belt, detect heart rate and breathing activity. If anything out of the ordinary, such as in the onset of sleep, is detected the fatigue detector is activated via signal processing unit. By cancelling out ambient noise that is expected in a car (vibration and body movements, for example), the HARKEN system is highly sensitive and fast-acting.
HARKEN signal processing unit, developed by Eesti Innovatsiooni Instituut, detects the effect of heart and respiration activity, filters and cancels the noise and artefacts expected in a moving vehicle, and calculates the relevant parameters, which are delivered in a readable format to integrate it in a fatigue detector. Signal processing unit comprises a sensitive signal conditioning part which is able to detect very small signal change while keeping good performance over whole dynamic range. In addition, high performance microcontroller runs the signal processing algorithms.
Our client, Borgstena Textile from Portugal, is negotiating with world leading automative OEMs in order to commercialize the HARKEN system.
The new technology developed with HARKEN project will be of huge value to consumers globally.