It produces acoustic impulses in the form of clicks, in which the frequency of the clicks relates to the strength of the radioactivity. This permits the continuous monitoring of critical states, even if they only appear briefly. In the 1980s, similar developments were successfully tested in the medical field.
The pulse-oxiometer e.g. the continuous acoustic monitoring of the oxygen content of the blood permits and gives the operating surgeon more clearance to concentrate on the surgical procedure at hand.
Before the increasingly systemic integration and automation of technical facilities, the continuous monitoring of the operating conditions was vital to any kind of operation.
Within many ranges, in those "just in time" cases (supporting industry) or "real-time" decisions that have to be made (medical life support systems) highly-qualified personnel were needed to watch over the corresponding information and even develop and/or change action strategies.
Recent studies on power station control posts or on intensive care units of the hospitals showed that the personnel are frequently overloaded with the present conditions of what they are doing.
The cause could be that the personnel are being exposed to massive stress caused by countless visual monitoring of instruments or constant emergency alarms ringing without knowing exactly what is going wrong.
Here is where the developments of differentiated acoustic signals and sound samples helps. They can provide the neccessary information quickly and over long distances, and alerts being organized in an acoustic display can be used because of the small data size and unit cost prices, particularly efficiently in mobile situations.
They offer essentially three benefits:
- small redundancy
- Speaking and culture-spreading sounds can be understood
intuitively and their meaning clearly,
without needing special training.
- simultaneous perceptibility
- The auditive perception apparatus is to a far larger extent in the situation,
to process and evaluate simultaneous events, rather than a visual representation.
One can read only several texts at the same time and follow their meanings, but one can succeed easily
in recognizing, by sound, the operating condition of an engine.
This circumstance is used e.g. by the automobile industry not only for the development of efficient diagnostics,
but otherwise determines the sound design of their products.
- Minimization of safety risks
- By a careful planning of the alert, which creates a combination of optical and acoustic signals contained and eye and ear in a balanced natural relationship,
the concentration and the mobility of humans entrusted with the monitoring are increased.
