easy-Radio Provides Solution For Worker Safety
Remote Safe Trace-M™ pendants and Co Buddy® stations contain LPRS’ easy-Radio transceiver units.
LPRS, one of Europe’s most successful integrators of industrial wireless communications solutions has had its market leading modular wireless communications system easy-Radio designed into a unique personal location and tracking system.
Designed in New Zealand by Remote Safe Ltd, the Co Buddy®-range of products have been designed to automatically track the whereabouts of staff and monitor their safety. In the event of a worker going missing, becoming incapacitated or requiring emergency assistance, the system provides immediate notification ensuring a rapid response. In such an emergency the system will automatically relay the status of the worker to a 24 hour monitoring centre, typically within one minute of the incident occurring. The monitoring centre also has the ability to provide the location of the worker at any time.
The information received by the monitoring centre includes such details as the type of incident (duress, panic, or man down), the worker’s name, their vehicle description, the current GPS position of vehicle and the worker’s position in relation to a known fixed location (a Trace-M Waypoint or Locator).
The system was designed specifically to provide a “buddy” for lone workers, remote workers or multiple workers in high-risk industries (e.g. high voltage, oil and mining). This applies when they are working both above and below ground, and particularly where conventional communications are limited or unavailable. The manufacturers are receiving increasing interest from other sectors, to safeguard workers in health and other higher risk public services, local government, quarrying, warehousing etc.
Co Buddy®(Call out Buddy) Vehicle Systems are available as portable or fixed vehicle units and comprise a uniquely designed (Trace-M) individual ‘Man Down’ pendant and ‘Control Unit’, combined with a GPS unit and a Tait mobile radio. When a staff member is called out the Co Buddy® system is plugged into the vehicle (portable system) or switched on (fixed installation). This automatically sends an ‘On Call’ data message to the monitoring centre along with the GPS location of the vehicle. The worker then drives to their worksite. The monitoring centre tracks the vehicle remotely via GPS to ensure they arrive safely. On arrival at the job the pendant is removed from the Co Buddy® unit and attached to the worker. This automatically informs the monitoring centre that the person has “arrived on site” and gives the GPS location of the vehicle and any relevant fixed location that they are near (see Co Buddy®-Trace-M System). After completion of their work assignment, the worker returns the pendant to its holder, which sends an automatic “job complete” message to the monitoring centre. The worker then drives to the next location where the cycle is repeated or drives home (tracked via monitoring), where they sign off by pressing a single button on their Co Buddy®, which sends an “at home” signal to the monitoring centre.
The Co Buddy® -Trace-M System (Trace Remote Alert Call Events – Monitor) was developed to support Co Buddy® Vehicle systems and is made up of a network of wireless devices (solar or battery powered), which are placed in strategic locations outside or inside a building, or underground complex, to provide a known fixed reference location. These devices can automatically detect Co Buddy® vehicle systems or Trace-M pendants (see below) and when used in conjunction with these devices, relay their location data to the monitoring centre. These are specifically designed to provide the location of a worker under duress where GPS is unavailable or where there is a requirement to actively track a worker around the complex (i.e. security or safety checks in high risk facilities). These devices all use the LPRS easy-Radio range of transmitter, receiver or transceiver modules.
To provide a robust and reliable method of data transfer to a monitoring centre, the Co Buddy® - Trace-M locators, waypoints and pendants have been designed to interface with the proven radio technology (conventional and trunking) of Tait Electronics. However Co Buddy®-Trace-M products are also capable of interfacing with other communications media such as cellular (GSM or GPRS) telecommunications, fibre optic and satellite.
The Co Buddy® -Trace-Mä pendant is the worker’s lifeline and is the key component in the Co Buddy® Trace-M systems. The pendant is automatically armed when removed from its holder (either from a vehicle or in a building). It automatically communicates with the system of locators and stores location data as a worker moves around a complex. In the event the worker is injured or becomes incapacitated the worker can press the ‘panic button’ or the pendant will automatically send a “man down signal” which will be relayed to the monitoring centre. On activation the pendant also relays where the worker is in relation to the nearest locator (known fixed location) along with the nature of the emergency, (i.e. panic or man down) and the unique identifier code (user details), all within seconds of the event occurring. The pendant has a “crawl” function for when workers need to operate prone or in bent over positions and this deactivates the “man down” for a programmable length of time before it automatically resets itself. The pendant also has an “increasing chime alert” which prevents false activations of the man down feature.
All pendants can be detected by all Co Buddy® -Trace-Mdevices. For example: a lone worker travelling to a site (underground complex with a network of Locators on each floor) in a vehicle with a portable Co Buddy® Vehicle unit, will be monitored from his home to the site and then underground as he travels throughout the complex. Any activation of his pendant will relay who he is, the GPS location of his vehicle parked outside, the vehicle’s registration, the known fixed location of the locator he is nearest to (i.e. “11kva room, on level 3, North Eastern corner”) and the nature of the emergency (panic signal or man down).
As part of their service commitments many organisations in high-risk industries have to provide after hours fault response. The person “on call” must be able to be contacted at any time of the day or night to respond to problems that occur in remote isolated locations with limited communication. These persons can often travel significant distances and attend to problems in highly dangerous environments (i.e. live electricity environment). Such workers are often by themselves with limited or no supervision and loose or minimal monitoring of their whereabouts and safety.
It has been a major concern for some time in a number of industries that there has not been a satisfactory means of monitoring the well being of such lone or remote workers or the ability to know when they are in need of assistance.
There is also a strong legislative requirement within an increasing number of countries to “take all practicable steps” to ensure the safety and well being of staff when working in an organisation. The sanctions for not doing so are also increasingly severe and can extend to very large fines for companies and even imprisonment for responsible company executives. The Co Buddy® system assists enterprises to comply with this requirement and avoid the risk of such sanctions.
Other benefits of the system include: knowing a worker’s location at any time they are working, the automatic recording (via monitoring software) of the GPS co-ordinates as the worker moves about a complex, automatic recording of time, date and place as the worker perform his duties or passes specific key areas, peace of mind for families of lone workers, specifically designed and developed back end systems to support Co Buddy® products (i.e. monitoring software, LAN integration, monitoring and emergency protocols, training and technical support and robust communications platform with the widest possible coverage (non cellular, encrypted radio based technology).
Remote Safe employed the services of a number of experts to develop the Co Buddy® range of products. These include Paul Wolstenholme of Industrial Control Engineering Ltd (www.industrialcontrol.co.nz) who are involved in designing and implementing intelligent industrial control systems for automatic control of plant and machinery. ICEL use PLC’s, computers and embedded microprocessors and have actively worked in partnership with Remote Safe to develop their innovative automated product.
Paul explains the benefits of using LPRS’ easy-Radio: “I was attracted to the use of LPRS radio modules by several factors. Importantly, the module includes all required RF circuitry with the sole exclusion of the antenna. Furthermore the module is shielded which minimises interference problems. These two factors greatly simplify the design of the remainder of the system. It eliminates the need for me to be involved in the so-called 'black art' of RF design and reduces the design risk of an otherwise untenable project to an extremely low level. We achieved our goal of designing production-ready boards at our first attempt. The third feature I like is the ability of the modules to accept and store changes to its configuration, such as receive and transmit channel selections and output power. This reduced the demands on our own
circuits’ tiny microprocessors”.
For more information on how easy-Radio can facilitate your wireless system design, please visit www.lprs.co.uk or call +44 (0)1993 709418.
Application illustration; There was recently an incident in a substation where a contractor was called out at 4pm in the afternoon to attend to a fault within the complex. The only person who knew he was called out was the Control Centre Operator who monitored the asset this worker was contracted to repair. An incident occurred and the worker died. Despite there being an Operator overseeing the fault response the worker was not ‘missed’ and subsequently his body was not discovered until the following day.
With a Co Buddy® System in place this type of scenario cannot happen. The monitoring centre would be alerted within 1 minute of a person collapsing and emergency services would be on site in less than an hour, providing an opportunity to save a person’s life. Current clients who are using the Co Buddy® systems can have confidence (and peace of mind) that it is highly unlikely they will ever have to face up to this or a similar scenario – not to mention the harrowing enquiry that typically follow such tragic events.
Comment by the General Manager, Transfield Services E & T. "There has been enthusiasm from the field workers on the call out roster about the philosophy behind the Co Buddy® and its user friendly technology. Cost effectiveness has been an important factor. The equipment has now been rolled out across Transfield services substations maintenance groups and has gained wide acceptance."
About Remote Safe: Remote safe is a company recently formed to market Co-Buddy™ and its related products. It’s individual shareholders also independently own or work in Mobile Communications Services Ltd (MCS) and Sundial Holdings Ltd. (Sundial Risk Minimisation). MCS is a Tait Electronics dealer based in Wellington New Zealand and is a leader in area of radio communications having operated for over 15 years in this field.
Tait Electronics is a leading provider of advanced voice and data radio communications solutions for mobile organisations throughout the world (www.taitworld.com).
Sundial is a consultancy that provides Risk Minimisation Services to the public and private sectors in the areas of health and safety, business continuity, emergency management and performance management. A recent director and pending shareholder is a founding director of Vantage Consulting Group, with particular skills in business strategy, technology commercialisation and venture capital investment.
About LPRS: LPRS is Europe’s leading wireless solutions supplier. Customers benefit from over 10 years experience of getting the most out of low power radio modules in the license free frequency bands. Their innovative “easy-Radio” concept acknowledges the gulf between hardware solutions and actually achieving reliable data transfer. By providing an efficient “over-air” protocol accurate signal reception is ensured and range performance is maximised. An “easy-Radio” module tailored to an application can save weeks of programming time and takes the stress out of getting a radio product to market. LPRS is a member of the LPRA (Low Power Radio Association), The company’s website can be found on www.lprs.co.uk