Method and apparatus for detecting the cardiac activity of a vehicle driver

A method and apparatus for detecting the cardiac activity of a driver of a motor vehicle by means of the capacitive ECG method in which a predetermined number of electrodes are incorporated in the driver's seat, perform the following steps: - setting an electrode as a reference electrode, - defining measurement channels as bipolar derivatives of other electrodes against the reference electrode, - performing a spatio-temporal independence analysis based on the measurement channels for the determination of the output channels of an output vector of independent analysis, - selecting at least one output channel from the output channels of the output vector of independent analysis, and - determination of heart rate and heart rate variability from the at least one selected output channel.