By Rural Builder Staff
Electronic engineers from the University of Southampton are working with the tech company Mafic to develop a hard hat that uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to track construction worker movements and improve safety.
The hard hat, called Safeguard, is a wearable device that fits inside a hard hat. It uses machine learning to recognize workers’ unique movement patterns while they are completing tasks and records while it is happening. It is aimed at enabling the real-time communication and analysis of data from remote locations to improve the productivity and industrial health of workforces.
Mafic and the university recently received a grant from the £5 million (approximately $7 million) SPRINT (SPace Research and Innovation Network for Technology) program to upgrade the technology. Combined with location to +/-20cm (7.87″) and data from environmental sensors, the device provides workforce-wide insight at a level of detail that has not been possible until now, detecting when and where hazards, activity, and opportunities are across an entire workforce and workplace.
