Smart Glasses-Based Personnel Proximity Warning System for Improving Pedestrian Safety in Construction and Mining Sites.

Jieun Baek,Yosoon Choi

doi:10.3390/ijerph17041422

Abstract

A smart glasses-based wearable personnel proximity warning system (PWS) was developed for pedestrian safety in construction and mining sites. The smart glasses receive signals transmitted by Bluetooth beacons attached to heavy equipment or vehicles, with the proximity determined by the signal strength. A visual alert is displayed to the wearer when in close proximity. The media access control address of the Bluetooth beacon provides information on the approaching equipment or vehicle, which is displayed to the wearer so that they can respond appropriately. There was a detection distance of at least 10 m regardless of the direction the pedestrian was looking and the alert was successful in all 40 trials at ≥10 meters. The subjective workload was evaluated using the NASA task load index on ten subjects, either without a personal PWS, with a smartphone-based PWS, or with the smart glasses-based PWS. The mental, temporal, and physical stresses were lowest when using the smart glasses-based PWS. Smart glasses-based PWSs can improve work efficiency by freeing both hands of the pedestrians, and various functions can be supported through application development. Therefore, they are particularly useful for pedestrian safety in construction and mining sites.

Highlights

Collisions between heavy construction equipment and workers occur frequently in construction and mining sites around the world
Depending on the media access control (MAC) address of the Bluetooth beacon that sent the Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) signal, a picture of the excavator already stored in the personal
We developed a personal proximity warning system (PWS) that uses smart glasses to receive BLE signals from

Summary

Introduction

Collisions between heavy construction equipment and workers occur frequently in construction and mining sites around the world. Eurostat reported 31 fatalities related to collisions with equipment at construction and mining sites in Europe between 2014 and 2018 [2]. In Korea, there were 121 fatalities due to collisions with the power machinery used at mining and construction sites in 2018 [3]. To prevent such collisions, proximity warning systems (PWSs) should be implemented at construction and mining sites [4]. PWSs provide proximity alarms to warn workers about approaching equipment or pedestrians [5]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion