Abstract: With the popularity of motor vehicles, traffic accidents frequently occur, and high mental workload during driving becomes an important cause of accidents. Multiple resource theory holds that mental workload stems from information processing process, which can be described by essential behavioral factors such as vision, audition, cognition and psychomotor. The design and implementation of driver's mental workload calculation system are studied in this paper. Firstly, based on multiple resource theory, the analysis methods of typical driving tasks are summed up and the calculation model for mental workload is established. Then the task of “intersection green-light straight crossing” is selected for case analysis, and according to the driving task, mental workload value is calculated by using calculation system. Finally, the pupil diameter and skin electrical signal of testees are measured by experiments and compared with the mental workload value calculated, demonstrating the correctness and usability of the system. The method proposed can handily calculate and predict the mental workload of drivers in executing typical driving task, find out the causes of high mental workload and hence reduce the occurrence of traffic accidents.

Key words: drivers, mental workload, multiple resource theory