Construction Technology – Keeping people safe
Technology in the construction environment is making significant progress.
Recent examples include the Cat Connected Worker system, Cohda and Sona Safe proximity detections systems, MyModular lighting and air quality systems and Electrocad wearable body sensors.
Introduced at MINExpo, the Connected Worker consists of three major components: the wearable hardware, software that captures and reports data and an Internet of Things platform that receives field reports and alerts workers of potential safety risks. The system communicates evacuation orders, fall detections, SOS signals and geofence violations.
Embedding tracking and communication capabilities into PPE just makes sense.
Cat says its new Connected Worker system, which will be available during the first quarter of 2022, combines smart wearable technology with the power of analytics to make workers safer. The system was developed by GuardHat.
In South Australia BAE Systems Maritime Australia’s latest innovation challenge provided Australian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the chance to propose novel digital safety technologies and applications for manual handling, extraction and ventilation, and wearables for safety around a shipyard environment.
- Cohda Wireless to trial an innovative, proximity threat detection platform between shipyard personnel and moving plant equipment and vehicles. This trial is designed to protect employees from collision injury.
- MyModular to demonstrate a very low voltage lighting solution designed to be used during construction within ship compartments that incorporates sensors that will alert employees if air quality is compromised or temperatures are rising too high.
- Electrocad to demonstrate an integrated wearable body sensor solution that provide real time feedback to the user to reduce manual handling injuries within ship compartments, including handling loads, awkward positions and repetition of activities.
Read more at BAE Systems.
Sonar proximity sensors by SonaSafe have been introduced into New Zealand Post and Kiwi Rail.
Sonar-based systems deliver more than a simple warning buzzer. Voice warnings, alarms, turning a driver’s sound system down or off, compulsory vehicle slowing or stopping, along with customised intervention measures, are all available in a sonar-based system. Traditional systems can offer some of this functionality, but not the variable proximity ‘bubbles’ that are key to sonar-based systems. By the very nature of the technology, sonar-based systems are active in three dimensions. The latest generation of sonar proximity and safety systems can modulate and re-shape the size of the safety zone around a machine, based on speed, location, current operation and the permissions of approaching personnel.