Incorporating Worker Awareness in the Generation of Hazard Proximity Warnings

Abstract

Proximity warning systems for construction sites do not consider whether workers are already aware of the hazard prior to issuing warnings. This can generate redundant and distracting alarms that interfere with worker ability to adopt timely and appropriate avoidance measures; and cause alarm fatigue, which instigates workers to habitually disable the system or ignore the alarms; thereby increasing the risk of injury. Thus, this paper integrates the field-of-view of workers as a proxy for hazard awareness to develop an improved hazard proximity warning system for construction sites. The research first developed a rule-based model for the warning generation, which was followed by a virtual experiment to evaluate the integration of worker field-of-view in alarm generation. Based on these findings, an improved hazard proximity warning system incorporating worker field-of-view was developed for field applications that utilizes wearable inertial measurement units and localization sensors. The system’s effectiveness is illustrated through several case studies. This research provides a fresh perspective to the growing adoption of wearable sensors by incorporating the awareness of workers into the generation of hazard alarms. The proposed system is anticipated to reduce unnecessary and distracting alarms which can potentially lead to superior safety performance in construction.