V.I.T.A.L.S.

Sudden medical incapacitation at the wheel can turn any vehicle into an uncontrolled hazard, and most existing countermeasures are either expensive or post-crash interventions that do not address real-time loss of consciousness. This project presents a retrofit smart seatbelt that integrates mechanical and electrical subsystems to detect probable driver incapacitation and initiate a controlled safe stop response in a demonstration vehicle. Mechanically, a standard 3-point retractable seatbelt is augmented with a padded sleeve and a removable clip-on module. The sleeve uses fabric, foam, and velcro to wrap around the shoulder segment while preserving the belt’s structural integrity, and houses conductive textile electrodes positioned over the upper chest, along with routing for a buckle latch switch and local haptic actuators. Electrically, the clip on module contains an ESP32 microcontroller, an AD8232 single lead ECG front end, an MPU6050 inertial measurement unit, indicator LEDs, a piezo buzzer, a vibration motor, and a 12 V to 5 V DC-DC supply driving a relay interface to a hazard light bar and motor controller. The ESP32 samples ECG and motion data, estimates heart rate, evaluates belt and torso motion, and implements a three-state logic model (NORMAL, WARNING, EMERGENCY) to determine when the driver is likely incapacitated rather than simply inactive. In EMERGENCY, the system commands a relay to remove drive power from the test platform, activates hazard lighting, and can transmit an alert to a paired device, demonstrating a low cost, retrofit path toward autonomous mitigation of medical loss of control events in existing vehicles.