Modern sliding table saws are equipped with several passive safety devices. Also a variety of guide lines are available in order to operate such dangerous machines correctly. However, alone in Germany several hundred severe injuries or limb amputations occur each year. Thus an active safety system is developed in order to protect the machine user. For this purpose, a multi-sensor system consisting of infrared and capacitive sensors was developed and is applied to the sliding table saws. Furthermore part of the safety system are actuators, namely a warning system and a rapid saw blade braking device. Several successful tests with a prototype were conducted.
