Citation

Butturini R, Midgett J. J. Saf. Res. 2006; 37(2): 175-185.

Affiliation

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, U.S. National Safety Council, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsr.2005.11.005

PMID

16698039

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Injury prevention systems intended to prevent children from entering hazardous locations (or at least alert caregivers if that occurs) often respond to every instance of a person's presence, regardless of whether the intruder is a child. This performance results in a high nuisance alarm rate that sometimes causes adults to disable or circumvent the safety system. If a child safety system can accurately identify intruders as adults or children, nuisance alarm rates can be decreased. METHOD: This analysis selects three human factors (height, foot length, and cognition) amenable to adult/child differentiation and describes likely sensor strategies, advantages, and disadvantages. RESULTS: Preliminary testing of prototypes systems shows that simple sensor systems are capable of acquiring adequate data for adult/child differentiation. The discussion addresses requirements for discriminator systems and the effects of various sensor combinations on overall performance.

Language: en