was4wos

was4wos: Wireless Alerting System for Worker Safety

In many countries, legislation requires that employees working alone be protected by systems that automatically detect hazards such as falls, medical emergencies or being in critical areas. Those kind of systems should, for example, inform first responders of danger or trigger warnings in appropriate areas.

Current solutions can only insufficiently fulfill these tasks - especially wireless systems have limitations in terms of real-time capability or range, for example.

As part of the was4wos project, a suitable radio technology is to be developed and adapted. 

co-funded by the Innosuisse – Swiss Innovation Agency and the European Union

The task of wireless emergency call systems is to detect and transmit emergency situations of lone workers in real time. A major problem is radio interference, which is caused by other radio systems and thus obstructs part of the transmission. However, people who work in hazardous areas or alone must be able to rely especially on technologies such as a wireless alarm system. 

Regarding the transmission of the hazardous situation, mobile radio could also be used. However, when cellular coverage is low, real-time information about the accident often cannot be transmitted reliably or at all, and help in the event of an emergency is not forthcoming. Alternative technologies to cellular radio, such as Bluetooth, WIFI, or DECT, offer only limited communication range. None of these technologies can cover large buildings or areas without installing costly network infrastructures. Therefore, secure communications with a high level of resilience are needed, thereby providing protection to lone workers in low-network environments, such as basements, without the need for external infrastructure. This refers to technology that enables reliable communication across multiple floors, even deep inside buildings.

The solution for this is an LPWAN connection such as mioty. This transmits information about the hazardous situation in real time, even in difficult environments such as basements, to a control center and then automatically to first responders' pagers or alarm displays.

In the was4wos project, Fraunhofer IIS is researching real-time mechanisms for LPWAN for this purpose. Using a so-called "multicast downlink," pagers of the responsible first responders are to be informed about the incident within the shortest possible time. In parallel, alarm lights and signals will be activated in real time to warn others about the emergency. 

mioty - the ETSI standard as a basis

The published ETSI specification TS 103 357 provides highly reliable connectivity over long distances. An implementation of the ETSI standard exists under the mioty® brand. DIN VDE 0825-1 requires a delay of less than two seconds between an alarm event and the processing of the event on the base station side for wireless personal emergency signal systems for hazardous lone working. The present mioty® implementation lacks a low latency mode for uplink messages (messages e.g. from the lone worker to a base station). Within the scope of the project, the Low Latency Mode optionally defined in the ETSI 103 357 specification is to be implemented in the mioty® system, thus achieving an overall communication delay of less than one second.

The results from the was4wos project are intended to protect lone workers in the future by means of a reliable and fail-safe real-time system and to prevent unnoticed accidents - human lives are to be saved. The emergency signal system developed for lone workers thus helps end users and large companies alike to increase the safety of their employees while reducing costs. There is also the option of expanding the system for other customer-specific applications. 

This innovative technology increases customer benefits:

• Fail-safe: Highest availability thanks to complete independence from third-party infrastructure, for both downlink and uplink applications - alerting and protecting individuals.
  
• Unification: Unified system for lone worker protection and alerting with robust, ergonomic and easy-to-use unified devices tailored to industrial environments.
  
• Cost savings through synergy: Optional system expansion for customized mission-critical IoT applications that require low-latency bi-directional communication.
  

mioty proved its reliability in simulated emergencies during a deployment in a real environment on the factory premises of ifm electronic GmbH in Tettnang. Two base stations covered 45,000 m2 of the site. These included two buildings, each with 2,500 m2 over several floors including the basement. For mioty, even this difficult radio environment is no obstacle.

In particular, the functions for time-critical alarm messages to protect lone workers were tested. The pager developed by Swissphone, which contains mioty technology, automatically detected falls, medical emergencies and presence in critical areas and sent these to the mioty base station. In the event of danger, first responders were then informed and warnings, e.g. an alarm, were triggered.

Following this successful implementation, further potential was identified. For example, mioty could soon be used to optimize production processes.