Development of a High-Resolution Human-Specific Breath Gas Sensor for Survivor Detection in Disaster Zones

作者：Toda Hideki^*; Capi Genci

来源：Advanced Robotics, 2012, 26(3-4): 349-362.

DOI：10.1163/156855311X614617

• Human respiration sensor
• ultrasound
• high sampling rate
• rescue robotics

This paper presents a new type of ultrasonic gas molecule concentration sensor for rescue robotics. This device can measure the change of gas concentration with a sampling rate of over 400 kHz. The performance is evaluated by measuring the CO2 concentration in human respiration gas. The experiments show that the proposed sensor could detect a difference between 5% CO2-containing air, humidified air and dry air with over 50 dB signal-to-noise, which are the main components of our respiration gas. Another important result was that our sensor could give information about the %26apos;dead space%26apos;, which is distributed from the lungs to the mouth. The %26apos;dead space%26apos; could not be detected by previously proposed commercially distributed gas sensors because of the time needed to analyze the gas. We verified the distance dependency of the respiration detection in a open space that was considered for use for finding survivors. These results make the proposed sensor especially applicable for finding survivors in disaster zones.

• 出版日期2012