A Worker-Driven Approach for Opening Detection by Integrating Computer Vision and Built-in Inertia Sensors on Embedded Devices

Due to the dense and complicated working environment, the construction industry is susceptible to many accidents. Worker's fall is a severe problem at the construction site, including falling into holes or openings because of the inadequate coverings as per the safety rules. During the construction or demolition of a building, openings and holes are formed in the floors and roofs. Many workers neglect to cover openings for ease of work while being aware of the risks of holes, openings, and gaps at heights. However, there are safety rules for worker safety; the holes and openings must be covered to prevent falls. The safety inspector typically examines it by visiting the construction site, which is time-consuming and requires safety manager efforts. Therefore, this study presented a worker-driven approach (the worker is involved in the reporting process) to facilitate safety managers by developing integrated computer vision and inertia sensors-based mobile applications to identify openings. The TensorFlow framework is used to design Convolutional Neural Network (CNN); the designed CNN is trained on a custom dataset for binary class openings and covered and deployed on an android smartphone. When an application captures an image, the device also extracts the accelerometer values to determine the inclination in parallel with the classification task of the device to predict the final output as floor (openings/ covered), wall (openings/covered), and roof (openings / covered). The proposed worker-driven approach will be extended with other case scenarios at the construction site.