A WSN-Based Intrusion Alarm System to Improve Safety in Road Work Zones

High auditory noise levels and limited visibility are often considered among the main factors that hinder seamless communication on construction sites. Many previous research studies have leveraged technology to overcome these obstacles and communicate using the hearing, sight and touch senses. However, the technological efficacy does not secure the users’ perceptivity of the wireless communication devices. Statistical data regarding the number of fatal accidents on construction sites have remained steady despite regular efforts. This study analyzed prior research on wearable safety promotion devices for personnel that move around the jobsite on foot. A seven-point checklist was utilized to shortlist prior studies (2005–2021) attempting to provide safety information wirelessly to the construction workers-on-foot. The reasoning behind various on-body placements was investigated along with the information conveyed using the three communication modalities. A novel communication network is also introduced to visualize the technical details. Lastly, limitations and future recommendations have been presented to gain insights about the factors that might affect the placement of the wearable safety promotion devices.

Section: Results and Discussion On Wearable Safety Promotion Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hard Hat Safety V [111] 2005 [129] 2007 [117] 2010 [112] 2011 [131] 2011 [136] 2012 [137] 2012 [113] 2014 [135] 2014 [128] 2015 [126] 2015 [130] 2015 [125] 2016 [138] 2016 [134] 2016 [139] 2016 [116] 2017 [120] 2018 [124] 2018…”

Section: Reference Yearmentioning

confidence: 99%

On-Body Placement of Wearable Safety Promotion Devices Based on Wireless Communication for Construction Workers-on-Foot: State-of-the-Art Review

Yadav¹,

Sadeghi²,

Kang³

2022

“…As an alternative, the application of newly emerging technologies in personalised safety monitoring could be used, a solution that has not been completely explored [ 8 ]. There are some works that have studied the feasibility of warning workers if a distracted driver enters the working zone [ 9 , 10 ]. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, no previous work has proposed any solution for distracted workers leaving a safe zone in a road construction environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our safety system is an RTLS that uses ultra-wideband (UWB) technology for the safety assessment of workers. Unlike previous works [ 9 , 10 ], our proposal solves the problem of accidents caused by distracted workers that leave the safe zone instead of focusing on distracted drivers that enter this safe zone. Thanks to the high accuracy of UWB technology, it can reliably tell if a worker is inside or outside a predefined safe zone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untethered Ultra-Wideband-Based Real-Time Locating System for Road-Worker Safety

Ochoa-de-Eribe-Landaberea,

Zamora-Cadenas,

Velez

2024

In order to reduce the accident risk in road construction and maintenance, this paper proposes a novel solution for road-worker safety based on an untethered real-time locating system (RTLS). This system tracks the location of workers in real time using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology and indicates if they are in a predefined danger zone or not, where the predefined safe zone is delimited by safety cones. Unlike previous works that focus on road-worker safety by detecting vehicles that enter into the working zone, our proposal solves the problem of distracted workers leaving the safe zone. This paper presents a simple-to-deploy safety system. Our UWB anchors do not need any cables for powering, synchronisation, or data transfer. The anchors are placed inside safety cones, which are already available in construction sites. Finally, there is no need to manually measure the positions of anchors and introduce them to the system thanks to a novel self-positioning approach. Our proposal, apart from automatically estimating the anchors’ positions, also defines the limits of safe and danger zones. These features notably reduce the deployment time of the proposed safety system. Moreover, measurements show that all the proposed simplifications are obtained with an accuracy of 97%.

“…Exposure to live traffic is often unavoidable in highway work zones, and providing alerts can be a cost-effective way to reduce struck-by injuries. Intrusion and proximity hazard detection technologies use active strategies to provide visual and auditory warnings to enhance workers’ awareness of hazards [ 14 , 15 ]. These warnings can be conveniently integrated into existing user interfaces such as visual displays and speakers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vibrotactile Alerting to Prevent Accidents in Highway Construction Work Zones: An Exploratory Study

Yang

Roofigari‐Esfahan

2023

Struck-by accidents are the leading cause of injuries in highway construction work zones. Despite numerous safety interventions, injury rates remain high. As workers’ exposure to traffic is sometimes unavoidable, providing warnings can be an effective way to prevent imminent threats. Such warnings should consider work zone conditions that can hinder the timely perception of alerts, e.g., poor visibility and high noise level. This study proposes a vibrotactile system integrated into workers’ conventional personal protective equipment (PPE), i.e., safety vests. Three experiments were conducted to assess the feasibility of using vibrotactile signals to warn workers in highway environments, the perception and performance of vibrotactile signals at different body locations, and the usability of various warning strategies. The results revealed vibrotactile signals had a 43.6% faster reaction time than audio signals, and the perceived intensity and urgency levels on the sternum, shoulders, and upper back were significantly higher than the waist. Among different notification strategies used, providing a moving direction imposed significantly lower mental workloads and higher usability scores than providing a hazard direction. Further research should be conducted to reveal factors that affect alerting strategy preference towards a customizable system to elicit higher usability among users.