Standards Development

Scope

This document provides clarification of technical specifications for an automatic emission control (AEC) feature built into a laser product that is used to adjust one or more output parameters to allow more laser radiation to be emitted out of the aperture in a protective housing than would be allowed without the feature.

This feature is currently allowed under the IEC 60825-1 Ed. 3.0:2014 standard, however, there is no clear guidance on how it should be performed or evaluated. This Technical Specification is intended to be used in conjunction with the IEC 60825-1 standard and provides clarification on how the feature should perform and how to evaluate its performance.

This clarification was originally requested by manufacturers of Lidars and Laser Illuminated Image Projection Systems, but it can be applied to other types of laser products.

Purpose

Many manufactures use sensor(s) to prevent an exposure to laser radiation emitted out of an aperture in the protective housing of a laser product that does not exceed the products assigned hazard classification. IEC 60825-1 does not prevent such designs but there is no guidance on how this type of feature should perform or how to verify it is operating properly. This technical report would provide some basic guidance on the performance requirements for such sensors.