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Ultrasound in air: Today's guidelines have an insufficiently solid basis for today's exposures

Ultrasound in air: Today's guidelines have an insufficiently solid basis for today's exposures
Ultrasound in air: Today's guidelines have an insufficiently solid basis for today's exposures
Today we see a proliferation of technology that purports to use the low ultrasonic frequency range (~20-40 kHz) in air for a wide variety of purposes: pest deterrents; through-air electrical charging; haptic feedback; acoustic spotlights; etc. These exposures are in addition to the inadvertent exposures of humans to ultrasound in air from cleaning baths, dental treatments etc. that have occurred for decades. New forms of exposure might possibly occur in future as more technology is introduced into homes, workplaces and classrooms. Whilst the vast majority of humans have not reported ill effects from this, some have, although there have not been the resources for widespread testing of the validity of these claims. However the dozens of national and international guidelines for such exposures are not currently adequate for the task of offering guidance for public exposures, since they are based on a very sparse dataset (of observations of primarily adult males), and all but one are for occupational exposure, and so cannot cover the un-monitored exposures of, say, infants taken into public location by adults who potentially have different susceptibilities to possible adverse effects.
Sense of touch, Testing procedures
0001-4966
3868
Leighton, Tim
3e5262ce-1d7d-42eb-b013-fcc5c286bbae
Leighton, Tim
3e5262ce-1d7d-42eb-b013-fcc5c286bbae

Leighton, Tim (2017) Ultrasound in air: Today's guidelines have an insufficiently solid basis for today's exposures. The Journal of The Acoustical Society of America, 141 (5), 3868. (doi:10.1121/1.4988648).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Today we see a proliferation of technology that purports to use the low ultrasonic frequency range (~20-40 kHz) in air for a wide variety of purposes: pest deterrents; through-air electrical charging; haptic feedback; acoustic spotlights; etc. These exposures are in addition to the inadvertent exposures of humans to ultrasound in air from cleaning baths, dental treatments etc. that have occurred for decades. New forms of exposure might possibly occur in future as more technology is introduced into homes, workplaces and classrooms. Whilst the vast majority of humans have not reported ill effects from this, some have, although there have not been the resources for widespread testing of the validity of these claims. However the dozens of national and international guidelines for such exposures are not currently adequate for the task of offering guidance for public exposures, since they are based on a very sparse dataset (of observations of primarily adult males), and all but one are for occupational exposure, and so cannot cover the un-monitored exposures of, say, infants taken into public location by adults who potentially have different susceptibilities to possible adverse effects.

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More information

Published date: May 2017
Keywords: Sense of touch, Testing procedures

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 416019
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/416019
ISSN: 0001-4966
PURE UUID: b3ac33ff-bd85-4b32-ac7e-72ae90588608
ORCID for Tim Leighton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1649-8750

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 30 Nov 2017 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:45

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