Morpheus alert: A smartphone application for preventing microsleeping with a brain-computer-interface

Abstract

Studies show that drowsiness while driving a motor vehicle can result in fatal car accidents. A smartphone application that uses a low-cost EEG brain-computer-interface is described. Morpheus Alert monitors both the brain waves ratio index (Alpha + Theta) / Beta and the user's attention level to detect drowsiness and prevent microsleeps. Two scenarios were created to record EEG data and analyze the differences of the ratio index and attention levels in normal and drowsy conditions. Data showed that the ratio index increases in average 29% in drowsy conditions. The application uses the NeuroSky MindWave Mobile EEG headset to obtain the user's attention levels as well as the alpha, beta and theta brainwaves magnitude values; the application constantly monitor the user's state and makes the smartphone vibrate and play a loud sound when a drowsy state is detected to alert the user. Results show that low attention levels in combination with high magnitude values of alpha and theta brain waves correlate to drowsiness. Morpheus Alert was able to correctly detect drowsiness in 73% of the cases.