A system for acoustically monitoring a heartbeat includes an acoustic body having a first material in contact with a second material, a density and a propagation speed of sound of the first material is matched with a density and a propagation speed of sound of a human body, and a density and a propagation speed of sound of the second material is matched with the density and the propagation speed of sound of the first material, a covering material in contact with a first surface of the acoustic body formed by the first material, and a microphone acoustically coupled to a second surface of the acoustic body formed by the second material.

A seat assembly may include a seat, a first bladder assembly connected to the seat, a second bladder assembly connected to the seat, and/or an electrical control unit (ECU) configured to independently control the first bladder assembly and the second bladder assembly. The ECU may be configured to maintain a level of inflation of the first bladder assembly to provide a hugging effect to a user of the seat while inflating and deflating the second bladder assembly to guide breathing of said user.

A vehicle includes a detection system configured to acquire data regarding operation of the vehicle, and a robotic driving device configured to provide robotic control of the vehicle. The vehicle also includes a control system configured to determine whether the robotic driving device is activated, such that the vehicle is in robotic driving mode; receive a request by a prospective operator of the vehicle to deactivate the robotic driving device to initiate a manual driving mode; determine whether the prospective operator is impaired based on the data; and selectively grant or refuse the request based on the determination.

A method for monitoring physical conditions of an operator of a driving apparatus is described. The method includes obtaining an identity of the operator, acquiring signals indicating a physical condition of the operator, and determining whether the physical condition as indicated by the signals has breached a predetermined threshold. Further, when it is determined that the physical condition as indicated by the signals has breached a predetermined threshold, the method includes generating a first status indicating the operator suffers an abnormal physical condition, obtaining a current location of the driving apparatus, generating a first notification based on the first status, the first notification indicating the identity of the operator and the current location of the driving apparatus, the first notification describing the first user suffers the abnormal physical condition, and transmitting the first notification to a data receiver in a healthcare facility.

In one embodiment, a cognitive load driving assistant increases driving safety based on cognitive loads. In operation, the cognitive load driving assistant computes a current cognitive load of a driver based on sensor data. If the current cognitive load exceeds a threshold cognitive load, then the cognitive load driving assistant modifies the driving environment to reduce the cognitive load required to perform the primary driving task and/secondary task(s), such as texting via a cellular phone. The cognitive load driving assistant may modify the driving environment indirectly via sensory feedback to the driver or directly through reducing the complexity of the primary driving task and/or secondary tasks. In particular, if the driver is exhibiting elevated cognitive loads typically associated with distracted driving, then the cognitive load driving assistant modifies the driving environment to allow the driver to devote appropriate mental resources to the primary driving task, thereby increasing driving safety.

Methods and apparatus provide physiological movement detection, such as gesture, breathing, cardiac and/or gross motion, such as with sound, radio frequency and/or infrared generation, by electronic devices such as vehicular processing devices. The electronic device in a vehicle may, for example, be any of an audio entertainment system, a vehicle navigation system, and a semi-autonomous or autonomous vehicle operations control system. One or more processors of the device, may detect physiological movement by controlling producing sensing signal(s) in a cabin of a vehicle housing the electronic device. The processor(s) control sensing, with a sensor, reflected signal(s) from the cabin. The processor(s) derive a physiological movement signal with the sensing signal and reflected signal and generate an output based on an evaluation of the derived physiological movement signal. The output may control operations or provide an input to any of the entertainment system, navigation system, and vehicle operations control system.

An apparatus for generating ECG recordings and a method for using the same are disclosed. The apparatus includes a handheld device having four electrodes on an outer surface thereof, the handheld device having an extended configuration and a storage configuration. The apparatus also includes a controller configured to measure signals between the electrodes to provide signals that are used to generate an ECG recording selected from the group consisting of standard lead traces and precordial traces. When the handheld device is in the extended configuration and the first and second electrodes contact a first hand of a patient such that the first and second electrodes contact different locations on the first hand, the third electrode is in contact with a location on the patient's other hand and the fourth electrode contacts a point on the patient's body that depends on the particular trace being measured.

A method of determining a fused sensor measurement is disclosed including: obtaining sensor measurements from sensors detecting a same type of physiological measurement; determining a signal quality index (SQI) of each sensor including determining an extent to which a sensor measurement differs from others among the sensor measurements obtained from each sensor; determining a weightage of each sensor based on the SQI of each sensor; and determining a fused sensor measurement from the plurality of sensors based on the weightage of each sensor and filtered sensor measurements of each sensor obtained from a Kalman filter operation. A vehicle safety system includes: a vehicle electronic control unit configured to: determine the sensor measurement extent, to determine the SQI of each sensor, determine the weightage of each sensor, determine the fused sensor measurement, determine the occupant's physiological condition, and if the physiological condition is abnormal, perform at least one vehicle operation.

A vehicle control device includes a first control unit that executes, when an abnormality of a driver of a vehicle is detected, stop control, a second control unit that executes, when the vehicle is determined to have a risk of collision, deceleration control, a determination unit that identifies an object around the vehicle as a target candidate of the collision and determines whether or not there is the risk of the collision with the identified target candidate, and a setting unit that sets, when the abnormality is detected, an operation mode of the deceleration control to a special mode from a normal mode, the normal mode provided for cases in which the abnormality is undetected. The determination unit expands a range for identifying the object around the vehicle as the target candidate of the collision in the special mode as compared with the range in the normal mode.

An abnormal physical condition determination system includes: an extraction unit that extracts a plurality of feature quantities indicating a condition of a target person from an image of the target person; an accumulation unit that accumulates the plurality of feature quantities as time series data; a calculation unit that calculates a relationship between each feature quantity from the plurality of feature quantities accumulated in the accumulation unit; and a determination unit that determines an abnormal physical condition of the target person on the basis of the relationship. According to such an abnormal physical condition determination system, it is possible to appropriately determine the abnormal physical condition of the target person.