Contact: Fred Blosser
(202) 401-3749
December 11, 2003 |
The National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health (NIOSH) is advancing the development and commercialization
of a high-tech system to protect tractor operators from serious
injury or death in a tractor rollover, the leading cause of
occupational fatalities in agriculture.
The system, called Auto-ROPS, consists of a sensor
wired to a protective metal bar or rollover protective structure
(ROPS), shaped like a squared, upside-down U and mounted behind
the tractor seat. In normal circumstances, the Auto-ROPS bar
sits no higher than the operator’s head. However, its
arms have the ability to telescope upward on compression springs
when unlatched.
When the sensor detects that a tractor is tilting
on uneven terrain in a way likely to result in a turnover, the
sensor signals the latches to release. This release deploys
the rollover bar to a level higher than the operator’s
head. Instantaneously activated, the bar prevents the operator’s
head from fatally striking the ground or bearing the impact
of the rollover. Rollovers account for more than 100 deaths
in farming every year. Rollover fatalities can be prevented
with the use of a ROPS and a seat belt.
“ROPS are fundamental protective equipment for tractors,
but the two traditional versions – fixed ROPS and manually
adjustable ROPS – both pose complications that Auto-ROPS
is designed to overcome,” noted NIOSH Director John Howard,
M.D.
“For example, farmers may find fixed ROPS,
which remain elevated above the level of the operator’s
head, physically impossible to use in orchards and other settings
where clearance is low,” Dr. Howard said. “A manually
adjustable ROPS provides some flexibility in that it can be
lowered in such settings, then raised when the tractor moves
onto open ground, but the farmer still needs to remember to
raise it, and to take time to do so. The new Auto-ROPS prototype,
which NIOSH developed in close partnership with the farming
community and equipment manufacturers, represents an ingenious
use of high tech to meet those challenges.”
NIOSH evaluated the prototype earlier this year
in successful field tests that compared it with traditional
ROPS. The tests involved simulations in which remotely controlled
tractors without drivers were overturned in ways that could
occur in actual operations. The tests showed that the sensors
operated reliably, that the bars deployed to levels higher than
those where most operators’ heads would be positioned,
and that the bars met industry standards for withstanding the
impact and weight of overturns.
NIOSH also asked a group of farmers to compare
the Auto-ROPS with a manually adjustable ROPS system. The farmers
said they believed that the Auto-ROPS was more effective than
the manually adjustable version, and that it provided better
protection. NIOSH and FEMCO, a McPherson, Kansas, ROPS manufacturer,
are working with tractor and power equipment manufacturers to
determine ways to bring the technology to commercial use through
marketing in the agricultural industry. Further information
on the technology is available from Tony McKenzie, Ph.D., safety
research engineer, NIOSH Division of Safety Research, at tel.
(304) 285-6064 or email elm6@cdc.gov.
Auto-Rops Testing Videos
Video1
163kb |
Auto-ROPS rear view test |
Video
2
84kb |
Auto-ROPS side view test |
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