Mental stress evaluation of car driver in different road complexity using heart rate variability (HRV) analysis

Controlling driver stress level is going popular research and put it very important factor to reduce risk of road accident. The aim of the paper is to analysis the impact of road complexity on driver stress level based on physiological factor of Heart Rate Variability (HRV). The first step of the research is literature study on human stress, Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Electrocardiograph (ECG), and NASA TLX mental work load. The driver will use ECG to monitor and then recorded at every heart rate change at any time from three different road conditions of city road, rural road, and motorways. The collected sampling data are 26 male drivers with the average age of 21 years old and average driving experience of 4.08 years. Mental stress evaluation of driver was assessed by frustration level (F) in NASA TLX questioner (subjective measurenment) and HRV in time domain analysis mRR (objective measurenment). The statistic test demontrated that there are not signifficant different mental stress level for driver between mRR and F - NASA TLX. The city road produced avarage F - NASA TLX = 3.92 and mRR = 612.40ms, rural road produced avarage F - NASA TLX = 3.46 and mRR = 621.26 ms, and motorway produced avarage F - NASA TLX = 2.50 and mRR = 820.20 ms. In sort, the mRR of HRV data can be used to monitor the mental stress level of driver in real time as consequence it baneficely implemented in car alert safety system.