Easy-to-use Electric Low Anchor Tether Winch for Child Car Seats

描述（由申请人提供）：机动车碰撞是美国儿童死亡的主要原因。儿童安全座椅为机动车辆中的儿童提供了更多的保护，并已观察到将死亡和受伤率降低了70%以上。儿童必须在正确安装的儿童安全座椅上系好安全带，以达到最大程度的保护。几项大型研究发现，只有10%到20%的儿童被正确地安置在正确安装的座椅上。最常见的错误之一涉及在车辆中安装儿童安全座椅。在2002年以前生产的大多数车辆中，使用车辆安全带附加了儿童安全座椅。在2002年以后的车辆中，儿童安全座椅可以使用儿童低锚和系绳（LATCH）系统。LATCH的设计是为了使儿童安全座椅的安装更容易，它在座椅上提供了两个较低的锚点（座椅靠背和坐垫的交叉点），在此锚点上连接着儿童座椅上的刚性或柔性带。无论连接方式如何，安全带或柔性闩锁带必须积极张紧（大于30磅）。以实现正确的安装。最近的研究发现，被检查的儿童安全座椅中有50%到100%的安全带太松。同样，在LATCH安装过程中，最常见的错误是下部锚带松动，30%的安装中出现了这种情况。松散的儿童安全座椅锚增加了儿童安全座椅与车辆之间的相对运动，从而增加了乘员，特别是头部与车辆内部碰撞的可能性。这个项目的目标是开发一种廉价的可伸缩的柔性下锚带儿童安全座椅。这种动力锚带将降低物理强度和灵活性要求正确收紧儿童安全座椅。我们假设，一个动力锚带将增加适当的儿童安全座椅的安装率，从而减少机动车辆碰撞伤害和死亡的儿童。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among children in the United States. Child safety seats provide increased protection for children in motor vehicles and have been observed to reduce death and injury rates by more than 70%. A child must be properly belted into a properly installed child safety seat to achieve maximum protection. Several large studies have observed that only 10% to 20% of children are correctly harnessed into correctly installed seats. One of the most common errors involves the installation of the child safety seat in the vehicle. In most vehicles manufactured prior to 2002, a child safety seat is attached using the vehicle safety belts. In vehicles newer than 2002, a child safety seat may be attached using the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) system. LATCH is designed to make installation of child safety seats easier by providing two lower anchors at the seat bight (the intersection of the seat back and cushion) onto which a rigid or flexible strap from a child seat is attached. Regardless of attachment modality, a seatbelt or flexible LATCH strap must be aggressively tensioned (greater than 30 lbs. typically) to achieve proper installation. Recent studies have observed from 50% to 100% of inspected child safety seats held in place by safety belts were too loose. Similarly, the most common error associated with LATCH installations has been observed to be a loose lower anchor strap, which was observed in 30% of installations. Loose child safety seat anchors increase the relative movement between the child safety seat and the vehicle thus increasing the likelihood of impact of the occupant, in particular of the head, with vehicle interior. The objective of this project is to develop an inexpensive power-retractable flexible lower anchor strap for child safety seats. This powered anchor strap will reduce the physical strength and agility required to properly tighten a child safety seat. We hypothesize that a powered anchor strap will increase proper child safety seat installation rates, thereby reducing motor vehicle crash injuries and deaths among children. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project involves an improvement to child safety seats. The available market for the proposed powered child safety seat anchor strap exceeds 2.3 million units annually. There are approximately 20 million children under 4 years of age in the United States. All are required by law to ride in child safety seats.