Prevention of Falls from Heights in Construction Using an IoT System Based on Fuzzy Markup Language and JFML

Abstract

The main cause of fatal accidents in the construction sector are falls from height (FFH) and the inappropriate use of a harness is commonly associated with these fatalities. Traditional methods, such as onsite inspections, safety communication, or safety training, are not enough to mitigate accidents caused by FFH associated with a poor management in the use of a harness. Although some technological solutions for the automated monitoring of workers could improve safety conditions, their use is not frequent due to the particularities of construction sites: complexity, dynamic environments, outdoor workplaces, etc. Then, the integration of expert knowledge with technology is a key issue. Fuzzy logic systems (FLS) and Internet of Things (IoT) present many potential benefits, such as real-time decisions being made based on FLS and data from sensors. In the current research, the development and test of an IoT system integrated with the Java Fuzzy Markup Language Library for FLS, to support experts’ decision making in FFH, is proposed. The proposal was checked in four construction scenarios based on working conditions with different levels of risk of FFH and obtained promising results.

Indoor Safety Monitoring for Falls or Restricted Areas Using Wi-Fi Channel State Information and Deep Learning Methods in Mega Building Construction Projects

“…As for the fall prevention techniques, numerous methods have been proposed in the literature, and some of them are listed as follows [7,10]: (1) fall hazard identification using Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools; (2) fall hazard identification using video camera techniques; and (3) real-time tracking systems for construction workers using various sensors, wireless sensor networks, or radio frequency identification (RFID)-based sensors. Other researchers have argued that the use of safety meetings, safety inspections, safety incentives and penalties, strict organization safety policy and legislation, and improved safety training and awareness could all help reduce the fall type of accidents [3].…”

“…Once the line of sight in construction sites is poor, the probability of having falls or related accidents is high [5,9]. For sensor-based fall prevention systems, each construction worker has to carry the sensor(s), and all sensor-generated data need to be well collected [10]. However, such assumptions seem to be unrealistic since construction sites are complex and dynamic in nature [11,12], and the quality of the sensory data collected varies significantly due to versatile field communication and/or sensors calibration problems.…”