Safety 360: Surround-View Sensing to Comply with Changesto the ISO 5006 Earth-Moving Machinery - Operator's Fieldof View - Test Method and Performance Criteria

Despite recent efforts towards protecting construction personnel from equipment which operates in too close proximity, most of the existing and more advanced accident prevention techniques focus on approaches using sensing technologies. These can alert workers-on-foot or personnel operating the equipment in real-time. The drawbacks that some of these technologies have, however, limits their use in practice as the applications in construction are diverse and the environment is harsh. This article first presents significant safety statistics related to visibilityrelated construction equipment accidents. It introduces a brief but critical review of the existing ISO 5006:2006 standard for earth-moving machinery – operator’s field of view – test method and performance criteria. Further, this article comments on a significant change that will soon be implemented in the standard and how equipment manufacturers expect to comply with the modification. Novel equipment design and sensing to provide equipment operators with a surround-view, called here “Safety 360”, is introduced and tested to verify that solutions for responding to the expected change in the International Standard – although they are technically challenging – exist. An outlook presents matters that need to be addressed in the future should equipment operation ever become safe.