|
Citation
|
Brauer S, Ritchie G, Cech L, Ciurczak E, Coates J. 27th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV); April 3-6, 2023; Abstract #: 23-0279, pp. 27p. Washington, DC USA: US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2023 open access. |
|
Abstract
|
27th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV): Enhanced and Equitable Vehicle Safety for All: Toward the Next 50 Years
https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/27/27ESV-000279.pdf
This paper presents an update on the research, development, and manufacturing of a novel passive contact-based NearInfrared Alcohol Sensor (NIR-AS) for non-invasively measuring Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) in human subjects and thus, provides potential for application in support of the new US Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act bill, section 24220, signed into law on 11/15/2021, once it is enforced. Alcohol-impaired driving remains a global problem. According to the most recent published report in 2020, U.S. motor vehicle crashes, alcohol-impaired fatalities represent over 30% of the total fatalities; a 14% increase over 2019 and a 29% increase relative to Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act bill, section 24220, cites statistics on the societal and human costs of alcohol impaired driving and specified intent to make BAC sensors standard equipment in all new U.S. cars in the future. The NIR-AS design and process for analyzing performance in quantifying BAC builds on the R&D carried out in support of the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS). The published research from DADSS provides valuable technical guidance and performance targets for BAC sensing in motor vehicles. Blood testing is the established gold standard for measuring driver BAC. Although blood testing is the most accurate reference for comparison against NIR-AS (or any new BAC sensor), it is highly invasive, time consuming, and cost prohibitive. Breathalyzers are well established sensors for estimating BAC, however, they also have performance limitations in practical, real-life conditions. Even so, based on published research, including DADSS, breathalyzers can provide an appropriate surrogate reference under controlled clinical and analysis conditions, for analyzing the performance of any new BAC sensor. The NIR-AS sensor described in this paper targets the passive detection performance requirements specified by DADSS. An alcohol dosing Design of Experiments (DOE) was carried out using a set of Near Infrared Alcohol Sensor (NIRAS) prototypes with human subjects using a repeat low level alcohol dosing protocol. BAC reference data was also collected using several law enforcement grade and commercial breath analyzers. NIR-AS spectra were processed and analyzed using commercially available and proprietary software. The DOE resultant data was analyzed using commercially available software packages to produce chemometric models. The paper presents model performance statistics including root mean square standard error of calibration (RMSEC), root mean square standard error of prediction (RMSEP), and square of the correlation coefficient, R² , for the NIR-AS calibration. A global model employing multiple sensors was tested across the same DOE and performance statistics are presented. Using NIR-AS, it is shown that BAC can be measured at varying concentrations of alcohol within the human body, including low alcohol dosing levels. Further improvements on the NIR-AS design and function will also be presented. Based on the results, there is significant correlation between BAC breathalyzer and NIR measurements at low dosing levels. The results demonstrate a high correlation between NIR-AS spectra and reference breathalyzers and achieve low RMSEP, RMSEC, and RMSECV. NIR-AS, with continued development, can be a potential tool for assessing driver alcohol impairment in support of ADAS and/or ADS countermeasures.
Ethanol impaired driving
Language: en |