Heavy construction consistently ranks in the top three industries worldwide for serious injuries and fatalities. Addressing these risks is the primary motivation behind the development of the Leica iCON safety awareness solution portfolio from Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon. Initially concentrating on pedestrians, the modular safety awareness solutions the Leica iCON PA10 and PA80 now include collision avoidance in hazardous conditions involving sensor-enabled machines, objects, and restriction zones.
“We aim to provide solutions that protect assets and infrastructure but most importantly allow more people to always see their families after a hard day’s work,” says Brad Mullis, Product Manager for Personal Alert Systems at Leica Geosystems.
Committing to technology that integrates a collision-avoidance system with a personal alert solution can improve both productivity and safety. Providing better visibility, greater feedback to operators and field personnel minimizes the risk of injuries, near misses and site shutdowns.
Improving Personal Alerts and Collision Avoidance
The iCON PA10 is an accident-avoidance device worn on-site for 360-degree visibility of pedestrians around heavy equipment. The personal alert device creates multiple zones of configurable warnings around any vehicle. The technology can predict potential close interactions between machinery and field crew, generating visual, audible and vibratory alarms to both operators and the pedestrians to avert potential accidents. Additional sensors can easily be installed on other moving objects and machines or to mark static infrastructure and avoidance zones to further improve safety awareness on construction sites.
Integrating Systems for Connected Safety Awareness
Users of the popular Leica MC1 machine control platform can leverage their investments to run the new safety awareness solution. The Leica iCON PA80 integration will automatically alert the operator on the screen of the same device that they already use for their ongoing machine operations. This will increase awareness and immediate response regardless of if the operator is in a dozer, excavator or any other heavy equipment using the MC1 machine control system. Leveraging the MC1 cloud enablement, incidents can also be logged and distributed to enable visualization, analytics or reporting within a contractor’s existing safety management processes.
The latest technology advances give heavy construction contractors more tools to make their construction projects more efficient, more productive and more safety aware.
To learn more about how to maximize safety and productivity on your construction projects, contact us.
