A joint project bringing together academic researchers and private firms in the automotive industry is developing an automobile capable of warning its driver of an impending heart attack.
"We want to reduce the number of unfortunate accidents" by developing the system "as early as possible," said Takao Kato, a professor emeritus at Nippon Medical School, who proposed the project a decade ago.
The project envisages mounting in the steering wheel two electric poles for electrocardiographic monitoring and sensors to detect pulse waves created in blood vessels when blood is sent from the heart.