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My company is interested in designing a protection system for small industrial machines, where factory employees insert wooden objects that are then cut by these machines.

The protection system needs to be aware of the presence of a human arm when inserted into the input-hall - the human arm will then put a piece of wood and the machine will cut the wood - however, the protection system needs to be able to detect the presence of blood in case for some reason the arm is cut - and in that case shut off the power of the industrial machine.

I'm no expert on sensing technologies and as we are looking to hire one, I am asking for advice on the proper sensing technology that can fit these requirements.

Capacitive sensing, as I understand - can not only detect the presence of an object - but also the type (e.g. distinguish human arms from blood) - can such technology be used for the purpose mentioned above?

Thanks,
Arkadi

Arkadi
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  • Arkadi, it's a pity that this thread got closed. Here's a specialized group dedicated to sensor technologies: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sensorforum . Post your question there. You'll get a good discussion. – Nick Alexeev Mar 05 '11 at 05:36

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I wonder if something like this could help: http://www.sawstop.com/ I'm a woodworker as well and have been considering this device. I am not sure if it can distinguish arm from blood but it seems to be able to sense 'flesh' and shut down.

n8wrl
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  • Thanks for the information - but detecting blood is important as this is for a factory where a 'failure' of one machine should perform multiple distributed tasks such as automatically shutdown the machines nearby (reducing noise and focusing the attention on the incident), send an email / call 911, etc. – Arkadi Mar 03 '11 at 19:12