Awareness 4 Safety - Smart Track

A4S – Awareness 4 Safety

CO-FINANCED BY: Competence Center Start 4.0 (CUP J32C21003780008)

The A4S – Awareness for Safety project addresses the issue of the safety of workers required to work in complex environments such as ports, construction sites, industrial sites and, therefore, exposed to highly dynamic risks of different degrees and natures.

The so-called Industry 4.0 technologies offer numerous hardware and software tools, from virtual reality to wearable sensors, to predictive algorithms, within the IoT paradigm; however, they need to be highly integrated with the user, i.e. placing the operator with their needs and behaviors at the center of the solutions developed. The aim of the project is to architect and prototype a solution in which the operator, equipped with wearable sensors and virtual reality tools and in continuous connection with a central processing system, can move in working contexts in a more conscious and therefore safer and more effective way.

The A4S project is the result of the integration of the two previous projects CYMON and SAFE 4.0, which are at an advanced stage of development within the Start 4.0 Competence Center, and in some ways constitutes their natural evolution. The demonstrator will be tested in a real operational context – presumably the PSA-SECH port terminal, which has already expressed its interest in the project – where it will be able to gather suggestions and evaluations from stakeholders useful for improving the proposed solution.

The proposed project is aimed at merging four main applications:

Realization of an application, intended for wearable AR augmented reality devices, designed to expand the situational awareness of the end user. This implies the consolidation of skills already present in the working group in view of increasingly competitive and challenging thematic scenarios. Today, it is clear to all that augmented reality is destined to be, in the coming years, a fundamental key for the modernization of businesses, the services they can offer, and industry in general, without considering the futuristic social and cultural impacts implied by what could turn out to be a true revolution, comparable in every way to what smartphones have brought to telecommunications.
Development of the Connected Worker by using new enabling technologies with the aim of increasing worker protection, considered the most important social challenge launched by the fourth industrial revolution
Analysis of data from the various sensors in the environment and on the subject for the design of artificial intelligence algorithms for the definition of a set of alternative paths that the subject can follow to complete the task assigned to them safely. Data analysis corresponds to defining and developing methods with which to recognize the presence of risk situations in the environment through which the subject must move. In this way, a graph model of the Pareto-optimal paths between a point of departure and a point of arrival will be defined.

Smart Track’s role

The activities will focus on the use of the new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.1 enabling AoA (Angle of Arrival) technology both for implementing innovative smart gates for hands-free transit control and for the implementation of a human-vehicle collision avoidance system.
The smart gateway will be equipped with BLE 5.1 AoA antennas capable of receiving signals from compatible wearable devices: as they approach the gateway, the angle of arrival of the received signal decreases until it changes sign corresponding to an entry/exit of a person or vehicle.

The same technology will be designed and implemented to be adopted by forklifts to provide an innovative anti-collision system.

The antenna can be installed on the roof of the forklifts so that the angle of the received signal can detect the direction in which an operator is near the forklift and by analyzing RSSI (received signal strength indicator) it will be possible to estimate the distance.

It will be possible to define pre-alarm/alarm thresholds to promptly alert the vehicle driver of the presence of a colleague in the area where the vehicle is being maneuvered. For both use cases, dedicated algorithms will be developed to fully exploit the potential of the BLE 5.1 AoA and to minimize possible false alarms.