Sharp Shows Off Health-checking "Cockpit"

Sharp Corp exhibited a prototype of the "Health-Checking Cockpit," which checks the physical and mental health conditions of the person sitting on it, at Semicon Japan 2014, which runs from Dec 3 to 5, 2014, in Tokyo.


The company has been receiving inquiries about the equipment from corporations and vendors of "housing for the elderly with home-care services." And it has already been introduced to several facilities on a trial basis. Sharp expects that it will be employed by businesses, fitness clubs, drugstores and nursing homes, planning to commercialize it in the first half of fiscal 2015.

The Health-Checking Cockpit is chair-like healthcare equipment having a monitor. It was designed based on the "premium seat" of an aircraft.
The equipment can measure body weight (BMI: body mass index), blood pressure, pulse rate, mental stress, blood vessel health (hardness), etc, and show measurement results on a monitor with a "total (health) score." Blood pressure is measured by A&D Co Ltd"s blood pressure meter that has Bluetooth capability and complies with the Continua Health Alliance standard. Pulse rate, mental stress and blood vessel health are measured by a pulse wave sensor.


The pulse wave sensor uses an algorithm that Sharp developed in cooperation with U-Medica Inc. Based on the waveform of pulse waves measured with near-infrared light (about 670nm), it calculates (1) the degree of mental stress by measuring the automatic nerve (sympathetic nerve and parasympathetic nerve) balance through frequency analysis and (2) the stress resistance through time (variation in pulse interval) analysis.
Moreover, the propagation velocity of the pulse wave is calculated by differential calculation of the pulse waveform in the aim of estimating the hardness of the blood vessel, which is an indicator of arterial sclerosis.


Measurement results are stored in Sharp"s cloud server. The company plans to have partners such as medical institutions and establish a system that automatically sends back analysis results. For example, it is considering providing a service of making a database of measurement results and enabling the user to interactively communicate with a medical doctor or counselor via the monitor.
The equipment was introduced to one of Sharp"s offices in November 2014.
"We are discussing its usability, data management, product design and so forth," the company said.