/IOTCONNECT, powered by AWS, enables smart PPE, keeping site workers safer
Because of the construction industry’s inherent hazards, construction sites and worker safety are well regulated. The use of personal protective equipment, or PPE, is mandated and includes simple equipment such as gloves, eye protection, hard hats and masks, but extends to flame-retardant clothing and breathing apparatus.
The responsibility for personal safety is shared between the employer and employee. With the right PPE available, workers must be trusted to use that equipment in the correct way. This leaves room for ambiguity, as environmental changes such as ambient temperature can also contribute to safety.
For example, in hot climates, it’s important to stay hydrated. Wearing PPE can raise the body’s core temperature, making it harder for the body to regulate in hotter environments. Workers can easily become fatigued and more prone to accidents.
Using sensors to monitor site conditions and site workers has been an area of research for several years. Proximity sensing is one example. An area on-site may be restricted to some personnel. That’s why being able to track or detect people in restricted areas can improve safety. Fall detection is another example where technology can be used, if not to prevent then at least to alert.
There are also commercial benefits to more advanced PPE. Accidents on site and, specifically, fatalities, can have financial consequences for companies operating construction sites. The tragic human loss the operators will feel is compounded by the fines and possible operating restrictions that may be imposed.
Smart PPE, as it is sometimes called, uses technology to augment the inherent safety features of classic PPE. The goal is to reduce fatal accidents to zero. While nascent, this could represent a significant evolution in the PPE industry.
Adopting smart PPE requires a step-change in the approach construction site operators take to worker safety. As such, it may need to be driven by legislation, with possible incentives. Making the technology simple to use, secure in operation and durable, will be key to achieving this.
Making PPE smarter
There are two critical technologies required to make PPE smart. One is the sensors used to monitor real-world conditions; the other is internet connectivity. Sensor technology continues to advance in areas such as micro-electromechanical sensors (MEMS). The size of an integrated circuit and often complemented by hardwired signal conditioning and processing, MEMS technology is the predominant sensor solution used in wearable devices.
Adding internet connectivity to a wearable sensor is only practically achieved using wireless technology. Many types of wireless technologies could be used:
- PAN, or Personal Area Networks:
- Bluetooth
- Thread
- ZigBee
- 6LowPAN
- Ultra-Wideband (UWB)
- Nearfield Communications (NFC)
- W-LAN, or Wireless Local Area Networks
- Wi-Fi
- W-WAN, or Wireless Wide Area Networks
- LoRA
- LTE/5G (NB-IoT, RedCap)
- Legacy Cellular (3G, 4G)
Each wireless technology has its benefits, but only W-WAN solutions offer a direct connection to cloud services. The PAN and W-LAN technologies will typically need to communicate to a local gateway, which then connects to the cloud.
The choice would depend on the implementation. A mobile phone can be used as a gateway for a device operating over Bluetooth, for example. But the total solution then becomes dependent on the mobile phone being close to the person wearing the smart PPE.
A solution that uses cellular connectivity has no dependency on a local gateway and relies only on cell coverage. Depending on the location of the site, this may or may not be an advantage. However, with the continued development in low Earth orbit satellites being used for IoT applications over 5G, that concern may be less relevant soon.
Smart PPE Solution
Avnet has developed a complete proof of concept for smart PPE. The solution uses an innovative sensor technology developed by researchers helping to optimize the sensor design and form factor into a worker monitoring device that fits into the inner profile of a standard hard hat. Many countries have strict regulations when it comes to hard hats and do not allow modifications to the hard hat while adding such sensors or other accessories. Avnet’s hardware design team has taken these limitations into consideration while designing the electronics board and choosing the right components for the bill of material.
Avnet’s engineers have also integrated /IOTCONNECT to provide features like device management, data ingestion and aggregation, visibility and analytics, alerts and monitoring for construction companies and their staff. /IOTCONNECT is Avnet’s software as a service (SaaS) for IoT connectivity.
For this design, Avnet used /IOTCONNECT, built on AWS. The AWS services used in the project are outlined below.
The AWS services used by /IOTCONNECT to create the smart hard hat
The AWS services used in this solution include:
AWS IoT Core
AWS IoT Core provides a fully managed palette of MQTT-based messaging features. Supporting MQTT 5 while remaining compatible with MQTT 3 means Avnet and /IOTCONNECT can help you maintain heterogeneous systems while taking advantage of the latest messaging features.
Amazon S3
Accessing Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) through /IOTCONNECT means you can store and protect any amount of data. Once your system is configured, accessing your data securely within Amazon S3 becomes easy!
AWS Lambda
Avnet uses AWS Lambda to run functions triggered by your application. With this service you never need worry about how to integrate actionable insights inro your IoT system; /IOTCONNECT on AWS takes care of it for you.
AWS IoT Greengrass
Avnet /IOTCONNECT leverages AWS IoT Greengrass to develop your device software, using pre-built or custom modular components. These components can be added or removed easily. Benefits include faster deployment at scale, with a focus on high-value data.
Amazon FreeRTOS
FreeRTOS is the cloud-neutral, open-source real-time operating system, implemented in over 40 microcontroller and microprocessor architectures.
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service. Avnet /IOTCONNECT can interface to Amazon DynamoDB to store and retrieve any amount of data, with consistently fast performance.
Amazon RDS
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud.
Amazon QuickSight
Amazon QuickSight is a hyperscale solution to data-driven business intelligence. QuickSight supports natural language queries through interactive dashboards and paginated reports.
Amazon SageMaker
Avnet /IOTCONNECT leverages Amazon SageMaker to deliver high-performance, low-cost machine learning for your IoT application. Amazon SageMaker makes is simpler to build, train, and deploy ML models at scale.
Amazon Kinesis
Avnet /IOTCONNECT uses Amazon Kinesis to analyze streaming data at scale. Kinesis ingests real-time data to support your analytics and machine learning applications.
Amazon EventBridge
Avnet /IOTCONNECT uses Amazon EventBridge to build loosely coupled, event-driven architectures without the need for custom code. EventBridge can be used to create, trigger, and manage millions of events and tasks.
Amazon Managed Grafana
Grafana is a popular, open-source analytics platform. Avnet /IOTCONNECT can use Amazon Managed Grafana to query, visualize, and create alerts from your data.
As the diagram shows, there are two elements to /IOTCONNECT. One part of the solution runs in the device to be connected; the other runs on the cloud platform. Together, they create a secure end-to-end connection that makes it easier to connect and maintain devices.
The smart hard hat
The smart hard hat concept is based on a new kind of sensor technology. The researchers behind the technology have demonstrated how it can be used to monitor the temperature of a worker and how fatigued they are, as well as provide fall prediction and detection.
Avnet’s engineering team leveraged its wide product portfolio. The solution is based on a single-board computer (SBC), designed and manufactured in-house.
Block diagram of the smart hardhat solution
The design uses a proprietary compute/communication module to reduce the non-recurring design costs and shorten the time to market. The module provides cellular connectivity and runs /IOTCONNECT to provide the interface between the edge device and the AWS cloud platform.
Many IoT innovators need design support with electronics, embedded firmware, cloud connectivity, web and mobile applications. Avnet delivered the hardware and software design and manufacturing, and through /IOTCONNECT, a simple and secure way to connect the solution to AWS IoT cloud services. Learn more about /IOTCONNECT here.
Avnet recently collaborated with a client to develop a working, demonstrable smart connected hard hat solution. Leveraging /IOTCONNECT will enable Avnet to work with other OEMs to easily customize the solution for specific applications and present it to potential investors, customers and partners.
Contact Avnet to start your IoT journey.
See /IOTCONNECT and our solution offerings on AWS Marketplace here.