Safety Helmet Wearing Management System for Construction Workers Using Three-Axis Accelerometer Sensor

Sung Hun Kim,Seung Hyun Lee,Changwon Wang,Se Dong Min

doi:10.3390/app8122400

Sung Hun Kim, Seung Hyun Lee + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app8122400

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Journal: Applied Sciences	Publication Date: Nov 26, 2018
Citations: 18	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Hongik University, Soonchunhyang University

Abstract

In the Korean construction industry, legal and institutional safety management improvements are continually being pursued. However, there was a 4.5% increase in the number of workers’ deaths at construction sites in 2017 compared to the previous year. Failure to wear safety helmets seems to be one of the major causes of the increase in accidents, and so it is necessary to develop technology to monitor whether or not safety helmets are being used. However, the approaches employed in existing technical studies on this issue have mainly involved the use of chinstrap sensors and have been limited to the problem of whether or not safety helmets are being worn. Meanwhile, improper wearing, such as when the chinstrap and harness fixing of the safety helmet are not properly tightened, has not been monitored. To remedy this shortcoming, a sensing safety helmet with a three-axis accelerometer sensor attached was developed in this study. Experiments were performed in which the sensing data were classified whether the safety helmet was being worn properly, not worn, or worn improperly during construction workers’ activities. The results verified that it is possible to differentiate among wearing status of the proposed safety helmet with a high accuracy of 97.0%.

Highlights

The importance of worker safety in the construction industry has become a prominent issue, and the Ministry of Employment and Labor in Korea has set a goal of reducing deaths due to industrial accidents by half before the end of 2022
The most deaths occurred in construction industry accidents (579 people, 29.6%) among all industrial accidents in 2017; the number of deaths has risen, as there was a 4.5% increase in the number of worker deaths compared to the same period in the previous year [2]
These results indicate that it is very important to manage the wearing of safety helmets, which can protect the heads of workers, as there is a high possibility that the head will be the body part that first impacts the ground in a fall accident [3,4]

Summary

Introduction

The importance of worker safety in the construction industry has become a prominent issue, and the Ministry of Employment and Labor in Korea has set a goal of reducing deaths due to industrial accidents by half before the end of 2022. Institutional and legal improvements are being pursued, and the need for safety is being emphasized [1]. Despite this progress, the most deaths occurred in construction industry accidents (579 people, 29.6%) among all industrial accidents in 2017; the number of deaths has risen, as there was a 4.5% increase in the number of worker deaths compared to the same period in the previous year [2]. An analysis of construction accidents by body part showed that the head (161 people, 41.2%).

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Discussion

Conclusion