Market
A drowning detection device in the consumer market for wearable safety devices. It has application in sport too. The entire application was developed by the EM.
Most people drown in rivers, streams and the oceans, but tragically 2 or 3 children are drowned in public swimming pools in the UK each year. The essence of the issue is that most sober adults behave in a safe manner in pools and risks are miniscule, but children have no sense of consequence and regularly get into difficulty – once or twice a month in a busy pool. The bonus is that children are easy to rescue because they are easily over powered, but recognition of difficulty is another matter. A drowning person doesn’t shout out (getting air a priority) and simply appears to be climbing a ladder in the water. Furthermore, they will not respond to any instruction because the panic state will have become profound. Even to trained eyes it is easy to miss, and a child in this condition has only about a minute before serious injury or worse is on the cards. Rescuers must recognise and respond in less than a minute.
This wearable device detects the ‘climbing the ladder’ state and sets off alarms in under 5 seconds. It finds application for child safety but is equally applicable to adults that just want the security of knowing the device will protect them if problems occur.
Technology
Apart from run of the mill sensor and embedded microcontroller system design, the following more demanding technnology applications were encountered:
- Radio frequency transmitters are used to transmit alarm conditions with this device. Unfortunately, swimming pools are a challenging environment in which to transmit radio signals because the uneven water surface is a huge reflecting ground plane (nodes, anti-nodes). Research and painstaking testing led to experience of the environment and the ability to overcome issues.
- Initial developments implemented the alarm decision making protocol on the basis of binary decisions, which were effective, but emphasis on AI (machine learning and deep learning) have turned an effective device into an exemplary one.
Capability
Key capabilities that the EM demonstrated during this development were:
- Embedded design: design of microcontroller systems is core to the EM’s capability. ARM and PIC are both used – the choice often depending on legacy status.
- Radio frequency telecommunications: as described above, RF design and implementation was challenging for this application.
- AI: learning, training and analysis of systems was a key element – as were the subsequent hardware choices to maximise performance and minimise production costs. The EM excels at systems analysis that is so fundamental to effective AI.
- Cost/Risk/Specification: it is always a requirement that delivery to specification is prompt and in budget, but the reality is that risks, costs and requirements are not static. The EM prides itself on project management of these elements such that costs are never a shock, and risks constantly assessed so that deliveries and costs meet prevailing expectations. Fruitful, trusting development relationships depend on the foregoing, which we encourage are customers to openly debate with us before order.
- Manufacture: seamless handling of prototype and volume manufacture. The EM insulates its clients from arcane and unnecessary decision making regarding manufacture in early stages and compiles manufacturing packs such that post prototype is fully documented without the need for such decision making.
- Quality and Operations: the scope of quality and operations implementation post prototype, if it is a need of client, is so wide it can’t be thoroughly covered here, but some key points follow:
- Applicable standards (EN 13485/EN 60601, etc.)
- Quality plans – we generate these for our own work or your entire product if desired.
- Procurement assistance and planning – particularly electronic components with all their associated volatility.
- Assistance with supply chain design and implementation – most applicably to new products.
- Operations planning and implementation: the journey from prototype to volume manufacture.
- 6∑, SPC, FMEA, reliability trials and other modern techniques (only if required by client) – design and assistance with implementation.
We know that: your success is ours too; failure for you is failure for us. This is never forgotten and we strive constantly to be on top of risks and utterly transparent.
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