An Embedded Sensory System for Worker Safety: Prototype Development and Evaluation

Towards smart work zones: Creating safe and efficient work zones in the technology era

INTRODUCTION

Work Zones (WZs) have long been identified as a source of traffic fatalities and delays. Despite considerable technological advances that have alleviated many operational challenges associated with a WZ, social concerns about safety and mobility near WZs remain. Notably, the concept of a Smart Work Zone (SWZ) emerged from the compelling need to improve the safety and mobility of traffic and other WZ participants. This study reviewed the literature to assimilate studies related to SWZ Systems (SWZSs), report their findings, and ascertain a future path forward.

METHOD

To accomplish this, the existing WZ-related literature base was clustered into safety and traffic mobility topics using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modeling. A thorough investigation of the pivotal inferences for the research topics was undertaken to comprehend current SWZ technologies and the need for further research.

RESULTS

The review uncovered the prominent features of SWZSs reported in the literature and the hindrances to their adoption. The most reported hindrances are the cost and effort associated with development, installation, and relocation. We uncover that Connected Autonomous Vehicles, vehicle-to-vehicle, and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, along with technology-based worker training are the most promising next frontier for SWZ.

CONCLUSION

Significant research gaps exist in the literature regarding developing and implementing SWZS. Additionally, little effort has been directed toward developing workers' skills and competency. Practical approaches such as Virtual Reality (VR)-based training are necessary to bring workers up to pace with the developing SWZ technologies.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Future research should be directed towards interconnecting and implementing available safety technologies to automate WZ safety and management. Workers should be trained using more practical techniques. In this context, using VR will enable the simulation of hazardous events in a safe environment while also improving workers' skill retention.

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

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.

Augmented Hearing of Auditory Safety Cues for Construction Workers: A Systematic Literature Review

Safety-critical sounds at job sites play an essential role in construction safety, but hearing capability is often declined due to the use of hearing protection and the complicated nature of construction noise. Thus, preserving or augmenting the auditory situational awareness of construction workers has become a critical need. To enable further advances in this area, it is necessary to synthesize the state-of-the-art auditory signal processing techniques and their implications for auditory situational awareness (ASA) and to identify future research needs. This paper presents a critical review of recent publications on acoustic signal processing techniques and suggests research gaps that merit further research for fully embracing construction workers' ASA of hazardous situations in construction. The results from the content analysis show that research on ASA in the context of construction safety is still in its early stage, with inadequate AI-based sound sensing methods available. Little research has been undertaken to augment individual construction workers in recognizing important signals that may be blocked or mixed with complex ambient noise. Further research on auditory situational awareness technology is needed to support detecting and separating important acoustic safety cues from complex ambient sounds. More work is also needed to incorporate context information into sound-based hazard detection and to investigate human factors affecting the collaboration between workers and AI assistants in sensing the safety cues of hazards.

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

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.

Improved intrusion accident management using haptic signals in roadway work zone

INTRODUCTION

Roadway work zones are known for hazard vulnerability, with many injuries and fatalities each year, due mostly to intrusions. Despite several available measures to improve safety, existing mechanisms are unreliable for workers to perceive alerts, due to the harsh working environment, with loud noise and limited vision. This research attempts to overcome hazard perception difficulties by introducing a new communication mechanism for intrusion hazard perception.

METHOD

The presented communication mechanism is based on past tactile sensing research, and is enhanced by signal profile and message modeling investigations. Experimental field trials were conducted for mechanism evaluation with a goal of improved situational awareness through tactile sensing.

RESULTS

The trial results show that users perceive warning messages well, even when their vision and hearing are limited, and that the signalized messages perceived could augment users' understanding of a potential hazard, allowing immediate precautionary actions. Practical Applications: The application of haptic signals in vulnerable work zones has the potential to improve upon limitations in innate sensing (e.g., vision and hearing), thus presenting an opportunity to better protect workers from potential accidents.

Wearable Sensing Devices: Towards the Development of a Personalized System for Construction Safety and Health Risk Mitigation

Wearable sensing devices (WSDs) are increasingly helping workers stay safe and healthy in several industries. However, workers, especially in the construction industry, have shown some aversion towards the use of WSDs due to their ability to capture specific information that may be considered personal and private. However, this revered information may provide some critical insight needed by management to plan and optimize worksite safety and support technology adoption in decision making. Therefore, there is a need to develop personalized WSD systems that are mutually beneficial to workers and management to ensure successful WSD integration. The present study aims to contribute to knowledge and practice by filling this critical gap using insight from 330 construction workers with experience using WSDs. The results from this study indicate that all 11 WSD functions identified through this study play a vital role in improving worker safety and health and that approximately two out of three workers are open to sharing the physiological and environmental information captured using these WSDs with their management. However, functions for detecting workers’ proximity to workplace hazards, specifically energized electrical materials, toxic gas, and fire/smoke, were the most critical functions that had mutual value to workers and management. Finally, the present study proposed and evaluated a phased personalized WSD system that should encourage successful WSD integration.

Investigation of Tactile Sensory System Configuration for Construction Hazard Perception

The application of tactile-based wearable devices to assist in navigation for people with low sight/low memory has demonstrated the feasibility of using such devices as a means of communication. Accordingly, a previous study in construction research investigated various parameters of tactile signals to develop a communicable system for potential application in construction hazard communication. However, the nature of construction limits the application of such devices to the body of construction workers, and it is important to understand sensor design parameters for improved communication, which has not been given significant attention yet. Therefore, this study aims to determine key design factors such as the number of motors, spacing between sensors and the layout of a tactile sensory system to be used for communicating construction hazards to workers. For this purpose, this study focused on identifying the number of motors based on extensive literature and the problem of construction safety as to hazard communication, determining the arrangement that allowed for effective delivery and perception of information with minimum effort. The researchers conducted two experimental studies: First, to determine the minimum spacing between vibration motors that allows for the identification of each individual motor with high accuracy; and second, to determine the layout of motors that is suitable for effective communication of multiple types of information. More importantly, the tactile-sensor configuration identified from this study allows the workers to learn the signal patterns easily in order to identify multiple types of information related to hazards. Using such a communication system on construction sites will assist in transmitting hazard-related information to workers, and thus, protect the lives of workers. Such wearable technologies enable the detection of individual-level hazards and prevent worker fatalities and severe injuries.