Increasing the productivity of workers in an office is always good for business. In fact a Japanese firm is developing a new system to ensure that workers do not fall asleep on the job. If they do they face cold winds…literally! The system involves blasting the office with extra cold air from the air conditioner if the worker is seen to display signs of sleepiness and lethargy by the sensors monitoring the worker.

Daikin, the air conditioning manufacturer and electronics giant NEC have teamed up to trial the system. The commercially viable system may be available by 2020 if the trials go well. The monitoring of the movement of eyelids of the worker are done via a camera and the computer will process the data automatically to lower the temperature of the room automatically if the eyelids look droopy.

The drop in temperature is expected to make the worker too chilled to be comfortable enough to sleep. As the alertness registers on the worker’s facial features and the camera relays these to the computer, the temperature will again be lowered to a more ambient one. Now this is one science project sure t give the participants a chill!