Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Patent
1996-09-08
1998-08-04
Hofsass, Jeffery A.
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
349539, 364148, 36472401, 36472412, 1286531, 128660, 1286701, 128671, 342 28, 329301, 329305, 329313, G08B 2300
Patent
active
057900329
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
The invention concerns an apparatus according to the classifying portion of claim 1, a method according to the classifying portion of claim 3 and uses of the method and/or the apparatus.
In the description hereinafter the detection of living bodies, in particular human living bodies, is used to denote detecting the presence of bodies in the living condition. Such detection is important for example when searching for persons buried alive as a result of natural catastrophes or in the case of accidents if there is neither visual nor audible contact with the buried persons. As the survival period is limited, great importance is attributed to immediately detecting whether there are still living persons buried alive, and rescuing such persons after they have been located. The term `locating` is used in the description hereinafter to denote establishing the place where the living body is disposed.
The previously used methods and apparatuses for detecting or locating persons buried alive are generally not capable of distinguishing persons who are buried alive, who are still living, from dead persons.
The use of search dogs is possible only to a limited degree in respect of time, experience has shown that an animal working with a high level of concentration, after two to three hours, requires a lengthy recovery period which results in the search being interrupted. In addition, as it is the sense of smell which is the main consideration in regard to animals, they are not capable of only searching for persons who are still living, and for that reason valuable time is often lost in rescuing dead persons, and that time is then no longer available for rescuing people who are still alive.
Listening devices for picking up signs of life or knocking fail to operate in relation to unconscious people. In addition, error-free location is frequently not possible due to reflection of sound in the debris.
In order to achieve improved location after avalanche accidents, it is known to carry transmitter devices on the body, which permit location to be effected after the person has been buried alive, on the basis of the emitted electromagnetic radiation. However devices of that kind do not make it possible to arrive at any conclusion about the life functions of the wearer and are generally not available in the case of accidents or when people are buried alive as a result of natural catastrophes.
There is therefore a need for improved equipment and methods of detecting living bodies, in particular human living bodies, in order to be able to proceed more quickly and in a more targeted fashion by qualified rescue of people who are still alive.
The object of the invention is so to develop an apparatus according to the classifying portion of claim 1 and a method according to the classifying portion of claim 14 that, while avoiding the above-described disadvantages, the desired improved rescue options are afforded.
That object is attained by an apparatus having the features of claim 1 and a method having the features of claim 13.
Further advantageous configurations and uses of the method and the apparatus are set forth in the appendant claims.
The inventors found that living bodies and therefore also human living bodies generally surprisingly influence high-frequency electromagnetic signals, even over relatively long distances, by virtue of their heartbeat and their respiration activity. As heartbeat and in most cases also respiration activity occur in unconscious people, those functions can be considered as an indication of the existence of life, for the purposes of the present invention.
As those life functions generally take place within known frequency ranges which with the human heart rate can be from about 0.5 through 3.4 Hz and are normally about 1 through 2 Hz, and in the case of respiration can extend between 0.1 and 1.5 Hz, that defines characteristic frequency ranges which are clearly different from those of other living creatures such as for example the search dogs which are frequently used on site.
A frequency ra
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Hofsass Jeffery A.
Lee Benjamin C.
Selectronic Gesellschaft fur Scherheitstechnik und Sonderelektro
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