At Singapore’s Changi International Airport construction site, smartglasses are being used as part of security measures during the development of the Changi East site.
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The smartglasses, resembling Google Glass, have been used by safety inspectors and resident engineers at the site since June. The glasses which cost around US $1,500, allow 20 roving duty managers to have a live view of what is happening at various work zones, enabling them to respond faster to incidents, reports Today online.
The mega construction site spans 667 football fields. There are specific parts of the airfield that have height restrictions, where equipment cannot be taller than 45m. An automatic height infringement detection system has been developed to ensure that tall equipment do not cross into zones with such height restrictions. The system uses GPS-enabled sensors, which sounds an alarm when an equipment has exceeded height limit.
“We do manual checks and, on top of that, we have automated systems where, if cranes were to breach (the) height limit, it will trigger an alarm at the (command centre),” said Marken Ang, Changi Airport Group’s (CAG) assistant general manager in charge of site safety.
Last September, as an added safety measure, a centralized system to track personnel and vehicles entering and leaving the worksite was set up. All personnel entering the site will need to scan their passes at the checkpoint.
According to Today Online, the airport built the Changi East Command Centre to provide round-the-clock surveillance, to oversee safety works within the airfield at Changi East. Contractors from different projects are allocated spaces at the center, where they can monitor works and track workers.
Team supervisors are expected to update work logs twice a day. The information is reflected on a digital map which provides a view of ongoing work at the site at any one time. The system will log the contact details of team supervisors, allowing for better management and oversight.
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All workers and vehicles entering the airfield are issued with a transponder, to track their movement, daily. The device will have to be returned when they leave. It allows the command center to track how many workers are in an area at one time.
The airfield has been protected with geo-fencing, so should a worker cross the fence into a restricted area, an alarm will sound to alert managers in the command center.
