Laser Institute of America (LIA) has officially opened up registration for its renowned International Laser Safety Conference (ILSC), a four-day conference that covers all aspects of laser safety practice and hazard control.
Held at the Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista South, Kissimmee FL USA, from 18-21 March 2019, ILSC offers detailed seminars and networking opportunities for professionals with laser safety responsibilities across multiple industries, including the medical and defense sectors.
The Laser Safety Scientific Sessions (LSSS) explore research on the biological effects of laser-tissue interaction, including that on the eye and skin. These Scientific Sessions complement the Practical Application Seminars (PAS), which discuss everyday scenarios that a Laser Safety Officer may encounter in medical, manufacturing or military applications.
Rockwell Laser Industries and Underwriter’s Laboratory Confirmed as ILSC 2019 Diamond Sponsors
LIA has announced that it has confirmed Rockwell Laser Industries (RLI) and Underwriter’s Laboratory as the Diamond Sponsors for the 2019 laser safety conference.
RLI are leaders in the laser safety industry, with offerings encompassing laser safety products and training for the industrial, medical and aesthetic sectors.
As one of the leading product safety testing and certification organization, UL is synonymous with safety.
LIA’s Executive Director, Dr. Nathaniel Quick said:
“RLI have been sponsors of ILSC since 2009. We have grown the event as the world’s leading laser safety conference with their support, and we look forward to continuing this synergy as we approach an even better ILSC in 2019.”
ILSC 2019 Early Bird Tickets Available
Early Bird tickets are currently on sale for a limited time and can be purchased directly via the ILSC website. Discounts are also available for LIA Members and Students.
The Laser Institute of America’s (LIA) latest edition of the LIA Today, a bi-monthly newsletter discussing latest laser industry news, featured a farewell message from Milan Brandt discussing his presidency and the milestones the professional society have achieved over the last year.
“As I come to the end of my Presidency, I would like to reflect on what 2018 has been for the Association and for me personally. 2018 has been a very special year for LIA,” said Milan, who also spoke of new areas of focus for LIA: “We have developed a new marketing plan. This will rebuild our digital footprint and increase our social media critical to promotion of the Association’s activities in the future.”
2018 has been a year of change and notable success for LIA, in particular, the achievement of its 50th Anniversary – celebrating its continued efforts to support and promote lasers and its applications globally.
“ICALEO ‘18 was one of our best conferences in terms of attendance and ‘bottom line’ for the last four years,” quoted Milan.
Also featured in the LIA Today November/December 2018 issue was an interview with Milan Brandt, entitled, “A Cuppa With Milan Brandt”. LIA Today seized the opportunity to discuss Laser Materials Processing, industry global trends, and Milan’s time at LIA as a member. Milan had this to say about being a member of LIA:
“LIA, in my view, has played a central role in the promotion, education, and growth of laser technology and applications globally. It has been the focus for this since its inception. I have been a member of LIA for some 32 years and this has enabled me to not only stay abreast of the latest developments in technology and applications but also develop global connections and networks in the area.”
This article was released to Laser’s Today for immediate publication and can be read at Laser’s Today.
Visit LIA Today to read the full interview, and to explore past issues.
Original Content: http://www.erienewsnow.com/story/39707413/milan-brandt-reflects-on-2018-and-the-future-of-lia-and-laser-materials-processing
The BLS will host a reception at ILSC to recognize its certified Laser Safety Officers, medical (CMLSO) and non-medical (CLSO), and to present BLS Illumination Award. The recipient of the award will be announced at the reception, held on Monday, 18 March 2019. The first BLS Illumination Award was presented to Mount Sinai Health System in 2017 in recognition of its support of laser safety through employee participation within the laser safety community and outstanding contributions to the field of laser safety.
Continuing a tradition begun at ILSC 2017, BLS will honor its CLSOs and CMLSOs who have been certified for 10 years or more by recognizing them with a commemorative lapel pin.
BLS will be holding CLSO and CMLSO exams the day before the start of ILSC on March 17th, 2019 for approved applicants who have submitted all application materials on or before March 1st, 2019.
According to Barbara Sams, Executive Director of BLS, “The ILSC venue provides an excellent opportunity for those eligible to take their CLSO or CMLSO exam, and then further their laser safety education at the conference. Of particular interest should be the Medical and Technical Practical Applications Seminars, MPAS and TPAS respectively, both of which are once again chaired by BLS certified laser safety officers.”
For more information on LSO or MLSO certification, please contact BLS.
For conference and registration details for ILSC, please contact LIA.
The classification of lasers by the product’s manufacturer – from Class 1 to Class 4 – is a valuable means to provide the end user with simplified information about the potential hazards to the eye and skin.
The concept of product classification can be considered a success story. Developed in the USA by the CDRH in the 1970s, it has been accepted internationally for more than 30 years, based on the standard IEC 60825-1. While the basic system of classification has remained unchanged since its inception, some adjustments were necessary over the years and will also be necessary for the future, when reacting to new types of lasers and scientific data on injury thresholds.
For a few years, diffractive optical elements (DOE) and microscanners have driven a large group of new products; mainly gesture controls and 3D cameras for consumer electronics (see Image 1), but also scanned lidars for machine vision and autonomous cars, as well as pico-projector scanners. For these new products, the combination of factors results in challenges for product safety and standardization. They are not intended as specialized professional products, such as lidars have been for the military, but are for consumer use. Therefore, in practice, they would need to be Class 1, Class 2 or Class 3R devices (depending on the wavelength range and country) but at the same time, for a satisfying performance in terms of detection distances, emission levels need to be relatively high. Because of the diverging or scanned nature of the emission, these systems suffer particularly from the conservative combination of classification rules of a 7-mm diameter pupil, an assumed exposure distance of 10 cm from the DOE or from the scanning mirror, together with an assumed accommodation to the apparent source at such short distance. While laser safety classification was always historically on the conservative side, it might be possible in the future to consider that the combination of those three exposure conditions is not only highly unlikely, but there are also reflexes (the near triad of accommodation) that result in pupil constriction when accommodating to a close target.
Defining measurement (pupil) diameters smaller than 7 mm for very close distances and as function of accommodation target might be a possible relaxation for future amendments, but would make the analysis even more complex. Also, possibly, emission limits can be raised somewhat in the higher nanosecond and lower microsecond regime, which is a task for the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, ICNIRP to which the IEC refers for bio-effects committee work. Particularly for a change in the emission limits the general “predicament” exists that the injury thresholds depend in a very complex manner on wavelength, pulse duration and retinal spot size. When emission limits for products (or exposure limits for the eye) are to be made to reflect the thresholds more accurately to reduce needlessly large safety margins, it automatically makes the limits more complex since simple limits by default would be, for many scenarios, over-restrictive. One exception in the 2014 IEC and ANSI revision applied to small retinal sources, where it was possible to greatly simplify the analysis of pulsed emission by setting the multiple pulse correction factor CP (or C5) to unity, at the same time permitting significantly higher emission levels as compared to earlier editions. On the other hand, in the same revisions, the analysis of extended retinal images became more complex by permitting significantly higher emission levels for devices in the range of the lower “safe” classes.
Besides possible adjustments in the emission limits, two concepts based on engineering safety features are currently in development in the responsible standardization committee at IEC to permit higher emission levels for divergent or scanned systems – but still achieve classification as “safe” class, such as Class 1 for IR and Class 2 for visible emission.
The first is a virtual protective housing (VPH) where the emission is automatically reduced when an object enters the VPH. In such a device, one or more sensors monitor the protected volume. Outside of the protected volume, the emission needs to be below the limits for the class that is to be achieved, such as Class 1. When the VPH is free of relevant objects, the emission level within that volume can be higher: as long as human access to this radiation is prevented by the system, it is not relevant for product classification. The sensor system thus establishes a virtual protective housing instead of a real one, and defines what is referred to as the “closest point of human access”.
The second type of engineering measure to raise permitted emission levels applies to lasers mounted on vehicles and other moving platforms. When the vehicle is stationary, only normal emission levels are permitted. When the vehicle is at a certain speed, it can be assumed that another vehicle that is driving at the same speed will do so with a minimum distance. Thus the speed of the platform is the basis to define the closest point of human access that is to be considered for classification, which can, for instance, be 1 or 2 meters from the car with the laser.
Both types of engineering features have the advantage that the emission is tested against permitted levels at farther distances than usual, resulting in significant increases of the permitted emission level for diverging or scanned emission. While the IEC standard can already be interpreted in a way as to permit classification on engineering features that prevent human access, in order to assure international standardized testing conditions, it is necessary to update the IEC standard and provide specific performance requirements. For instance, for the virtual protective housing, it will be necessary to define probes used to test if the emission is reduced when an object enters the VPH. For the “moving platform” concept, it will be necessary to define the measurement distance as function of vehicle speed, as well as additional requirements to prevent that people on or in the vehicle have access to hazardous levels of laser radiation, such as when the laser is mounted on the roof of the car and there is a sunroof, or people on a pickup truck’s bed. A virtual protective housing might be needed to prevent access for these cases and to ensure that the concept of “moving platform” is internationally accepted for formal product classification. After all, it needs to be appreciated that classification of products following IEC 60825-1, as a basic principle, can only rely on engineering performance of the device and cannot depend on proper installation or behavior of the user.
**Several of the issues discussed in this article were also topics of ILSC 2017 papers, including the history of CDRH and IEC standards in invited presentations by Jerome Dennis and David Sliney, respectively, as well as the moving platform concept. The 2014 updates of IEC and ANSI standards were discussed in earlier ILSC papers.
Karl Schulmeister was project leader for the 3rd Edition of IEC 60825-1 and is a consultant on laser product safety at Seibersdorf Laboratories in Austria. For more information, visit http://laser-led-lamp-safety.seibersdorf-laboratories.at.
The biennial conference’s presentations and discussions were aimed at advancing laser safety & ranged from laser generated air pollution to body sculpting & liposuction
ORLANDO, FL – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Laser Institute of America (LIA)’s International Laser Safety Conference (ILSC®) was held March 20-23, 2017 at the Sheraton Atlanta Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. With over 200 laser safety professionals from around the world assembled, medical and industrial discussions included a large range of topics from non-ionizing radiation sources to laser generated air contaminants.
In arguing the need for uniform non-ionizing radiation safety standards, speaker Jacques Abramowicz noted, “…ultrasounds of babies can be performed by non-qualified/non-certified individuals, as can body sculpting and liposuction.”
Jeffrey Luttrull, M.D. completed the plenary session, declaring, “…the retina does not have to be damaged to treat it. Once you take retinal damage away, it is like pushing the reset button.”
Major American and European research laboratories provided results of studies on the bioeffects of both ultra short pulse lasers and varying wavelengths to the skin and eyes. As technologies advance and more lasers become available for research, the maximum permissible exposure (MPE) limits will evolve for years to come.
In a clear indication that the case is not closed on the Class 3R laser, there were several views presented from the history of the classification. Presentations included proposed changes of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations related to laser pointers and the dangers they may present.
The Medical Practical Applications Seminar (MPAS) concentrated on the handling of smoke and plumes. There were also presentations on the use of lasers to help burn victims and for the treatment of acute and chronic pains. Laser use in veterinary medicine was also a hot topic. Notably, representatives from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were present at ILSC to answer questions in a panel discussion for the first time.
Because of the recent influx of first-time participants, the Technical Practical Applications Seminar (TPAS) refocused on the basics of laser safety. Co-chairs, Eddie Ciprazo and Jamie King, bookended the session with So you are the LSO – Now What? and Resources for the LSO. At the end of the seminar, attendees received the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Laser Lessons Learned Newsletter booklet, which is loaded with laser safety information.
In addition, the ILSC 2017 program featured a sponsor reception, display area, numerous networking opportunities, and a laser safety awards luncheon, which highlighted and recognized R. James Rockwell Jr. Award winner John O’Hagan and George M. Wilkening Award winner Wesley J. Marshall.
“In addition to our outstanding educational program at each biennial ILSC, we are pleased to recognize outstanding international laser safety leaders and their companies,” said LIA Marketing Director Jim Naugle.
Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. http://www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.
ILSC 2017 MPAS Attendees
ILSC 2017 General Chair John O’Hagan with MPAS Chairs
ILSC 2017 General Chair John O’Hagan with TPAS Seminar Co-Chairs Eddie Ciprazo and Jamie King.
