Safety: intelligent systems make life easier

They detect dangers, reduce risks and assist our failing senses – in short, sensors make life easier. In automobiles, for example, they enhance safety and motoring enjoyment as part of electronic systems. In eye surgery, they permit safe, virtually pain-free operating procedures for near- and far-sighted people. Even in offices, living rooms and bathrooms, these versatile polymers now provide added comfort and protection.

Sensors make life easier for us by helping, along with microprocessors and the necessary software, to make  devices, machines and processes more intelligent. In this way they also make life safer for us. Sensor and measuring technologies are key technologies that have acquired crucial importance in virtually all spheres of modern life.

Feeling and moving

In matters of safety, the automotive industry leads the way. Its goal is to halve the number of fatalities on the road by 2010. This target will, however, only be met if cars are fitted with electronic “guardian angels”. Today, airbags or intelligent seat belt systems already protect us in a crash. But until radar-based lane-change assistance systems or automatic emergency braking are fitted as standard on every car, we will not progress much further forward. The development of these mechatronic systems is made possible by polymers with special advantages such as high heat resistance and hardness. And their potential is by no means exhausted yet.

Hearing and seeing

In medical technology, too, high-performance plastics offer a very high level of safety. For many people, poor hearing or eyesight means a considerable reduction in their quality of life. Specific help can be provided in such cases by innovative developments. These often involve very tiny components, which are still expected to meet extremely high performance requirements, as in hearing aids. Such applications are a clear case for using the technical polymer Celanex^® PBT from Ticona. It permits a modular, stable hearing aid mechanism to be produced to very high precision and also simplifies the integration of conductive electronic components.

Smelling and tasting

With their good mechanical properties, ease of processing and wide design freedom, polymers are finding their way into more and more areas of our everyday life. They perform reliable service in faucets, automobile seats and furniture, for example. Since it would, of course, be unacceptable for plastics to cause any taste or odor in such applications, the specified limit values for emissions into water and air are suitably low. This in turn gives consumers the certainty of knowing that that they can safely enjoy all senses to the full.