A transcutaneous acupoint electrical simulation glove for relieving the mental fatigue of crane drivers in real building environment

Abstract

In the field of construction, the lifting environment of precast parts is more complex, which leads to the driver’s fatigue. When the tower crane driver appears driving fatigue, it will appear slow operation response, hoisting precast parts appear abnormal swing, which will endanger the safety of on-site operators. Therefore, this study developed a kind of transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation gloves. When the crane driver wears this kind of glove, the good contraction of the glove can make the stimulation electrode closely fit with the three points, so as to perform electrical stimulation on the Neìguān point (内关PC6), Láogóng point (劳宫PC8) and Hégŭ point (合谷L14) of the palm to relieve the driver’s driving fatigue. In this study, non-periodic transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation (NPTAES) was used to stimulate human acupuncture points. This is different from the traditional periodic transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation (PTAES) method for relieving mental fatigue. In addition, this study used hilbert marginal spectral entropy (HMSE) to calculate the heart rate variability (HRV) characteristics of the subjects, so as to detect and analyze the driving fatigue of the drivers. At the same time, the drivers’ blinking frequency and electroencephalogram (EEG) characteristics were analyzed comprehensively. The results show that: The NPTAES method used in this study is superior to the PTAES method in alleviating driving fatigue and greatly improves the efficiency of tower crane drivers. Compared to other methods, the HMSE method proposed in this study, when analyzing signals, stronger ability to characterize signal characteristics.