This paper presents a low-cost and simple distributed force sensor that is particularly suitable for measuring grip force and hand position on a steering wheel. The sensor can be used in automotive active safety systems that aim at detecting driver's fatigue, which is a major issue to prevent road accidents. The key point of our approach is to design a chain of sensor units, each of them provided with some intelligence and general purpose capabilities, so that it can serve as platform for integrating different kinds of sensors into the steering wheel. A proof-of-concept demonstration of the distributed sensor consisting of 16 units based on capacitive sensing elements has been realised and preliminary results are presented.
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