Reflective vest equipped with sensors, glass with integrated camera, relocated safety shoes… Industrialists work together to develop a set of connected equipment to improve the safety of operators and the ergonomics of working in the field. Zoom.
The Ideas Laboratory partners in Grenoble, including Bourges Construction, Suez, Air Liquid and CEA’s technical research department, have jointly designed the various elements of a connected work wear(especially sewn-in reflective fabric), designed for operators on construction sites. It includes a “connected sleeve” (which looks like the PIP-Boy video game Fallout), a kind of individual terminal worn on the forearm that guides and information workers in real time in the field. Compatible with wearing gloves, it ensures communication and optimizes the efficiency of workers, whatever the weather conditions. According to its designers, it “will thus improve working conditions”, whether it is an industrial production site, a construction site, or a waste treatment unit. It has already been the subject of a conclusive pilot phase and it is already planned that a gradual deployment will be carried out in several regions of France.
Other equipment should be developed, including a high visibility vest equipped with sensors to analyze the quality of the air breathed by the operator and equipped with LEDs displaying the dangers, protective glasses incorporating a camera in the manner of Google Glass as well as warning pictograms on the periphery of the field of vision, or relocated boots to better identify themselves on a site under construction. Partners need to work in a collaborative mode, capitalize “on their knowledge and expertise of the industry sector” and rely on new technologies, including “robotic”, this emerging branch of robotics that aims to assist humans. The connected EPI project is part of the company’s prevention plan aimed at improving safety, but also in the very evolution of business lines with the increasing contribution of digital technology. The worker of the future will be increased.