Patent ID: 7982618

Claim:
A wakefulness maintaining apparatus, comprising: a data capturing part that captures data corresponding to a drowsiness of a person; an event detecting part that detects an event related to the drowsiness of the person using the captured data of the data capturing part, wherein the event is an unconscious and spontaneous action and includes at least one of an action of the person, an appearance of the person, and a movement of a vehicle driven by the person; a drowsiness level determining part that determines a drowsiness level of the person using the captured data for a predetermined period, wherein the drowsiness level changes in accordance with an average strength of the drowsiness for the predetermined period; a threshold setting part that sets a threshold value to divide the drowsiness level into a plurality of level ranges, wherein the threshold value includes a first threshold value and the plurality of level ranges includes a first level range and a second level range divided by the first threshold value, the first level range is equal to or lower than the first threshold value and the second level range is higher than the first threshold value, the second level range is a range where a stimulus having an awaking effect is supplied to the person on condition that the event detecting part detects the event; a level range determining part that determines the level range of the drowsiness level determined by the drowsiness level determining part; an event determining part that determines whether the event detecting part detects the event; and a stimulus supplying part configured to be in a standby state when the level range determining part determines that the drowsiness level is in the second level range, the stimulus supplying part configured to supply the stimulus having the awaking effect to the person at a time when the event determining part determines that the event detecting part detects the event while the stimulus supplying part is in the standby state.