Standards Development

Scope

This document specifies minimum requirements and test methods for systems recognizing involuntarily submersion of humans in managed public aquatic facilities.

It specifies the function, operation and performance of systems recognizing involuntarily submersion of humans in managed public aquatic facilities.

It is applicable to managed aquatic facilities as indoor pool, outdoor pools and free water pools.

Purpose

Swimming and bathing in public swimming pools is one of the most popular leisure activities in the world. The frequency of drownings is quite low, but drowning is the worst case of possible accident in swimming pools. Pool operators provide a large number of staff and organisational requirements to avoid these accidents.

Systems able to detect persons lying on the bottom of a swimming pool, have existed for approximately 20 years. These systems analyse and process pictures with computers and give an alarm to staff. These systems generally detect the drowning after it occurs. This approach represented the technical abilities at that time and are still on the market today.

The market for systems recognising involuntary submersion has developed in ways that was unforeseeable only a few years ago. Integrated systems including a variety of technologies promising to provide the prevention of an involuntarily submersion by observing swimmers before, or while, going below the water surface with mouth and/or nose, especially recognizing “dry drowning” at the waters surface, are readily on the market.

If a drowning accident has occurred and the person is under water for a while, time is of the essence and a quick alarm is required. The issue of false alarms is an important point. Intelligent systems, are able to recognize and understand that human behaviours occurring before an involuntary submersion does not require an alarm, but are able to communicate with staff. The point is to not set off an unnecessary alarm. Intelligent systems draw the attention to a certain situation at a very early stage in the process of an involuntarily submersion.

The implementation of these technologies generally utilize significant public funds and raise public health expectations, therefore they must be validated by reliable performance based test methods, referencing research of medical aspects and concerns of human behaviour. These types of systems are not covered by standards and there is an urgent need for standardized test methods and performance requirements as a horizontal norm for different systems providing the recognition of involuntary submersion.

Systems working with artificial intelligence cannot be addressed in the same manner as traditional systems in our standards. They are watching and understanding human behaviour and are partly acting like human beings. An important issue in the new work item will be to create new performance requirements to the workflow and test methods.

This task is neither covered by ISO- or by CEN-Working-items, therefore a new work item would provide a solution that the market is waiting for .

Appropriate performance based test methods and requirements for systems for prevention oinvoluntarily submersion would improve the prevention of injuries to swimmers and non-swimmers around the world.

A new work item under a new Working Group can bring this important work forward and serve the market with a reliable system of standards. The foreseen umbrella standard for general requirements and single standards for specified systems and facilities regarding their characteristic abilities and target groups would bring an urgently needed clarification to the market.