Aggregate monitor data in real-time by worker

• US 10,593,164 B2
• Filed: 11/09/2015
• Issued: 03/17/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Kumar, Tarun, Sharma, Praveen
• Primary Examiner(s): Mortell, John F
• Application Number:
  US14/936,438
• Publication Number:
  US 20170132884A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,590 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0415 detecting absence of activity per se
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0446 worn on the body to detect changes of posture, e.g. a fall, inclination, acceleration, gait
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0453 worn on the body to detect health condition by physiological monitoring, e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, breathing detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 5/22 using electric transmission; using electromagnetic transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds

Abstract

A worker monitoring system. The system comprises a processor, a display, a data store, a non-transitory memory, and an application stored in the non-transitory memory. The application stores definitions of associations of electronic monitors to workers in the data store, receives information from the electronic monitors via a wireless communication link, based on accessing the data store, analyzes information from a plurality of electronic monitors associated with one of the workers, corroborates information from a first electronic monitor associated with the one or the workers using information from a second electronic monitor associated with the one of the workers, and based on the corroboration of the information from the first electronic monitor, and presents an alarm indication on the display.

Claims

1. A worker monitoring system, comprising:

a processor;

a display;

a data store;

a non-transitory memory; and

an application stored in the non-transitory memory that, when executed by the processor;

receives definitions of associations of electronic monitors to a plurality of workers, where the electronic monitors are carried by the plurality of workers in a work environment, wherein each of the plurality of workers carries two or more different electronic monitors, each configured to transmit different information about the environment;

stores the definitions of associations of the two or more different electronic monitors to each of the plurality of workers in the data store;

receives information from the electronic monitors via a wireless communication link;

based on accessing the data store, analyzes information from two or more different electronic monitors associated with a first worker of the plurality of workers to determine a safety status of the first worker;

interprets information from a first electronic monitor of the two or more different electronic monitors associated with the first worker of the plurality of workers based upon information from a second electronic monitor of two or more different electronic monitors associated with a second worker of the plurality of workers, wherein the first worker is different from the second worker;

wherein the first electronic monitor is one of and the second electronic monitor is another of a gas detector, a dust detector, a radiation detector, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), a bio-harness, a biometer, a gyroscope, and an accelerometer; and

based on the interpretation of the information from the first electronic monitor and the second electronic monitor,

presents one or more of an alarm indication, a fault indication, or an issue indication on the display, where selection of the alarm indication by a user interface causes details about the first worker to be presented in a drill-down frame on the display.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first electronic monitor comprises a gyroscope monitor configured to indicate a man down situation and the second electronic monitor comprises a gas sensor, and wherein interpretation of the information from the first electronic monitor comprises interpretation of the man down situation from the gyroscope monitor by analysis of information from the gas sensor.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication link is provided to the electronic monitors by a plurality of wireless access points (AP) connected via a wired network to the processor.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication link is provided at least in part by a cellular wireless link between a mobile phone and a cell tower, where a mobile phone is associated with each of the plurality of workers that communicatively couples the electronic monitors carried by each of the plurality of workers to the cell tower and the cell tower communicatively couples via a wired network to the processor.

5. The system of claim 1, where the application further automatically dispatches assistance personnel to care for the first worker based on the alarm indication;

wherein the application automatically dispatches assistance personnel to a location determined from information sent via the wireless communication link by a self-location monitor associated with the first worker.

6. A method of monitoring worker safety, comprising:

receiving, by a monitoring station, definitions of associations of electronic monitors to a plurality of workers, where the electronic monitors are carried by the plurality of workers in a work environment, each of the plurality of workers carries two or more different electronic monitors, each configured to transmit different information about the work environment, and the monitoring station is a computer system;

storing the definitions of associations of the two or more different electronic monitors to each of the plurality of workers by the monitoring station in a data store;

receiving, by the monitoring station, information from the electronic monitors via a wireless communication link;

based on accessing the data store, analyzing information from two or more different electronic monitors associated with a first worker of the plurality of workers by the monitoring station to determine a safety status of the first worker;

interpreting, by the monitoring station, information from a first electronic monitor of the two or more different electronic monitors associated with the first worker based upon information from a second electronic monitor of two or more different electronic monitors associated with a second worker of the plurality of workers,

wherein the first electronic monitor is one of and the second electronic monitor is another of a gas detector, a dust detector, a radiation detector, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs), a bio-harness, a biomonitor, a gyroscope, and an accelerometer;

based on the interpretation of the information from the first electronic monitor and the second electronic monitor,

presenting an alarm indication on a display by the monitoring station;

receiving a selection of the alarm indication by a user interface of the monitoring station; and

responsive to receipt of selection of the alarm indication, presenting details about the one of the workers in a drill-down frame on the display by the monitoring station.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising scanning the electronic monitors by an electronic scanner to obtain identities of the electronic monitors, wherein receiving definitions of associations of the two or more different electronic monitors to each of the plurality of workers comprises receiving associations of the identities of the two or more different electronic monitors determined by the electronic scanner to identities of each of the plurality of workers.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the process of scanning the two or more different electronic monitors further comprises defining an identity of each of the plurality of workers associated with the two more different electronic monitors being scanned.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the wireless communication link is provided by WiFi access points (APs).

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the wireless communication link is provided by a mobile phone carried by each of the plurality of workers.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising presenting an indication of a number of new events that have not previously been acknowledged on the display of the monitoring system,

wherein the events are one of alarm events, fault events, and issue events;

wherein the display comprises an alarm events summary box, a fault events summary box, and an issue events summary box;

wherein the alarm events are associated with hazardous conditions with potential to cause loss of human life;

wherein the fault events are associated with conditions that are not in themselves life threatening but can lead to life threatening conditions later if neglected and can lead to degradation or damage to equipment and/or loss of material resources; and

wherein the issue events are associated with minor device conditions that relate to lack of compliance.

17. The method of claim 6, wherein the first electronic monitor comprises a gyroscope monitor configured to indicate a man down situation and the second electronic monitor comprises a biomonitor, and wherein interpretation of information from the first electronic monitor comprises interpretation of the man down situation from the gyroscope and interpretation of information from the second electronic monitor comprises analyzing information from the biomonitor.

12. A method of monitoring worker safety, comprising:

receiving, by a monitoring station, definitions of associations of electronic monitors to a plurality of workers, where the electronic monitors are carried by the plurality of workers in a work environment, wherein each of the plurality of workers carries two or more different electronic monitors, each configured to transmit different information about the work environment, and the monitoring station is a computer system;

storing the definitions of associations of the two or more different electronic monitors to each of the plurality of workers by the monitoring station in a data store;

receiving, by the monitoring station, information from the electronic monitors via a wireless communication link;

based on accessing the data store, analyzing information from two or more different electronic monitors associated with a first worker of the plurality of workers by the monitoring station;

interpreting information from a first electronic monitor of the two or more different electronic monitors associated with the first worker based on information from a second electronic monitor of two or more different electronic monitors associated with a second worker of the plurality of workers,

wherein the first electronic monitor is one of and the second electronic monitor is another of a gas detector, a dust detector, a radiation detector, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), a bio-harness, a biomonitor, a gyroscope, and an accelerometer;

based on the interpretation of information from the first electronic monitor,

synthesizing a model that articulates a comprehensive view of the safety of the first worker by the monitoring station; and

presenting the comprehensive view of the safety of the first worker on a display of the monitoring station.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein synthesizing the model articulating the comprehensive view of the safety of the first worker comprises interpreting information from a first electronic monitor based on information from the second electronic monitor.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving, by the monitoring station, a user input selecting one of the plurality of workers; and

based on the user input selecting the one of the plurality of workers, presenting an effigy representing the location of the plurality of workers on a map display of the display of the monitoring station.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein synthesizing the model that articulates the comprehensive view of the safety of the first worker comprises associating one or more of an alarm event to the first worker, a fault event to the first worker, and an issue event to the first worker based on the information provided by the first electronic monitor and the second electronic monitor.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the work environment comprises one of a refinery, a chemical plant, a paper plant, a semiconductor manufacturing plant, a food processing plant, and a construction site.