Technical Papers
Sep 29, 2022

Affordable Multiagent Robotic System for Same-Level Fall Hazard Detection in Indoor Construction Environments

Publication: Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Volume 37, Issue 1

Abstract

Fall accidents are the leading cause of fatalities in the construction industry, and can occur due to various environmental hazards, such as unprotected walkways, slippery surfaces, exposed edges, and so forth. To mitigate the risk of fall accidents in construction workplaces, it is crucial to identify and locate potential fall hazards. Because conventional safety monitoring methods have been inefficient, more-effective inspection methods are needed. This study presents a cost-effective multiagent robotic system that can automatically detect and localize potential fall hazards on construction jobsites. This study focused mainly on same-level fall hazards and considered all the slipping, tripping, and falling hazards in the indoor construction environment to be potential fall hazards. The proposed collaborative robots are assembled using five low-cost hardware modules and successfully can detect and localize same-level fall hazards by integrating simultaneous localization and mapping, path planning, and computer vision techniques. The proposed affordable robotic system allows for the widespread adoption of proactive fall accident prevention methods, which can contribute significantly to the safety management of construction workplaces.

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Data Availability Statement

All data, models, or codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Go to Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Volume 37Issue 1January 2023

History

Received: Mar 1, 2022
Accepted: Jul 5, 2022
Published online: Sep 29, 2022
Published in print: Jan 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Feb 28, 2023

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Amit Ojha, S.M.ASCE [email protected]
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Pennsylvania State Univ., 101D Engineering Unit B, University Park, State College, PA 16802. Email: [email protected]
Yizhi Liu, S.M.ASCE [email protected]
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Pennsylvania State Univ., 101C Engineering Unit B, University Park, State College, PA 16802. Email: [email protected]
Shayan Shayesteh, S.M.ASCE [email protected]
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Pennsylvania State Univ., 101D Engineering Unit B, University Park, State College, PA 16802. Email: [email protected]
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Pennsylvania State Univ., 224 Engineering Unit A, University Park, State College, PA 16802 (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4786-7616. Email: [email protected]
William E. Sitzabee, M.ASCE [email protected]
Vice President and Chief Facilities Officer, Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, State College, PA 16802. Email: [email protected]

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