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International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

HCII 2020: HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Digital Human Modeling and Ergonomics, Mobility and Intelligent Environments pp 67–82Cite as

NannyCaps - Monitoring Child Conditions and Activity in Automotive Applications Using Capacitive Proximity Sensing

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12429))

Abstract

Children have to be transported safely. Securing children in a child seat is indicated. Due to structure and restraint systems, children are secured in case of an accident. Children require our attention to keep them healthy and at good mood. Nonetheless, attention must be payed to driving, too. This discrepancy leads to unattended children. Furthermore, responsible must decide to leave their children alone in the vehicle in case of emergencies. This may lead to heat strokes.

Aside of limiting effects of an accident, it would be helpful to assist ambulance after an emergency and to detect injuries even without accident. Besides safety features, preserving good mood of children is an exquisite comfort feature. This can be achieved without privacy issues as they would occur using camera-based systems.

The proposed solution, NannyCaps, is designed to contribute to safety and comfort. An invisible array of capacitive proximity sensors enables head position recognition, sleep state recognition, heart rate recognition and occupancy recognition. The system is included into the child seat, only.

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of NannyCaps. By conducting ten test runs under real world conditions, more than 600 km of data is collected. Using this data, NannyCaps is trained and evaluated. Reasonable results are shown in evaluation. Thus, following the development of NannyCaps will likely improve the situation for children in transportation systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Sebastian Frank

  2. Technische Universität Darmstadt/Fraunhofer IGD, Darmstadt, Germany

    Arjan Kuijper

Authors
  1. Sebastian Frank
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  2. Arjan Kuijper
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Frank .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Crete and Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Constantine Stephanidis

  2. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Vincent G. Duffy

  3. Smart Future Initiative, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Norbert Streitz

  4. Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Shin'ichi Konomi

  5. Ilmenau University of Technology, Ilmenau, Germany

    Heidi Krömker

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Frank, S., Kuijper, A. (2020). NannyCaps - Monitoring Child Conditions and Activity in Automotive Applications Using Capacitive Proximity Sensing. In: Stephanidis, C., Duffy, V.G., Streitz, N., Konomi, S., Krömker, H. (eds) HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Digital Human Modeling and Ergonomics, Mobility and Intelligent Environments. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12429. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59987-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59987-4_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-59986-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-59987-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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