Toyota wants to detect heart problems while driving

Accidents on the road are the inevitable occurrences that most drivers are aware of. In the Philippines alone, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded a total of 10,624 road traffic accident deaths in 2018. From that number, there were roughly 30 deaths due to road accidents per day.

Toyota is aware of the mishaps that happen on the road on the daily basis. That is why the Japanese carmaker is collaborating with the University of Michigan Biomedical and Clinical Information Lab to develop algorithms that could detect heart anomalies of drivers while driving.

This could greatly reduce road accidents caused by heart episodes

“As Toyota works toward achieving mobility for all, in-vehicle cardiac monitoring systems could play an important role in reducing the risk of traffic accidents,” said Pujitha Gunaratne, principal scientist at the Toyota Collaborative Safety Research Center.

The goal of the research is to develop in-vehicle cardiac monitoring systems. With this, accidents due to heart episodes/problems can be greatly reduced.

Heart episodes can happen anytime even while driving. In fact, one in every four deaths in the United States is caused by heart disease. This fact simply states that heart problems are among the contributing factors of road accidents in the US.

The in-vehicle cardiac monitoring system would be a good addition to all Toyota vehicles

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As of this writing, Toyota is currently in the last phase of its 3-year research. The Japanese automaker added that the results it has been getting are really promising. To further advance its research, Toyota said that it will be having discussions with other organizations on a potential collaboration to gather and analyze more data.  

“We plan to execute another study, which will build on our current research that explores ways of collecting data from drivers through non-wearable devices. This could include installing sensors in various parts of a vehicle, including those that respond to touch or even non-contact monitoring,” said Pujitha Gunaratne when asked what is Toyota’s next step for the research.

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