Preliminary Assessment of a Fire Escape Hood Integrated with Positioning and Motion Sensors

Wearable electronics appear more frequently in the personal protective equipment market (PPE) primarily to assure information and alarm functions for the user. However, despite their advantages, there remain doubts concerning the level of protection that these devices can guarantee and their conformity to requirements laid down in PPE legislation. This paper investigates the factors that need to be assessed to confirm that such devices function correctly under anticipated use conditions. To this end, we considered a case study of an air-purifying fire escape respirator (APER) integrated with a radio-based positioning system and alarming device. In particular, we examined the parameters associated with the operation of the alarm and the information functions (the visibility and audibility of the alarm signals and the radio signal strength of the positioning system). This study provides evidence that the anticipated use conditions and the APER construction have a combined effect on the correct functioning of the embedded electronics. Based on these findings, we identified additional requirements that should be considered by PPE manufacturers at the design stage as well as by health and safety practitioners when evaluating the protection levels of PPE with embedded electronics.