School buses in Osceola County and across Central Florida will soon be equipped with special child detection technology that aims to save children's lives.
Specialized radar technology, designed by South Korea's Smart Radar Systems Co., scans the front, sides and underside of buses to look for children.
It will also help in scanning inside the bus in case a child has been left behind, if there is one an alarm will sound and lights will flash to let the driver know.
Randy Wheeler, the district's deputy transportation director, said the technology was designed after a 9-year-old child died in Orlando in January after crawling under a bus.
“I always tell people the underside of the bus is the biggest blind spot for a driver, so I think this is something that all school bus operators have the potential to do,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler said he expects buses across Central Florida to be updated with the technology soon.
“So this system could become a virtual assistant to help the driver understand what's going on around the bus,” Wheeler said.
The technology could be approved by the Florida Department of Education as early as next fall, and Smart Radar Systems says it would take a trained technician just two hours to install and upgrade a current bus with the radar.
Hojeong Kim, general manager of marketing, said the company's technology has already been deployed in South Korea's capital Seoul, where radars installed in public toilets and on public transport can detect whether there are medical emergencies.
He says it's important that the technology protects individuals' privacy while still summoning help quickly.
In Central Florida, 9-year-old Elias Marshall Rodriguez died after diving under a bus in Orange County in January, and then in April, a 15-year-old student died after suffering a medical emergency on an Orange County bus.
Check out this new technology being tested in South Korea:
