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Trends in Workplace Wearable Technologies and Connected Worker Solutions for Next‐Generation Occupational Safety, Health, and Productivity
Advanced Intelligent Systems (2022)
  • Vishal Patel
  • Austin Chesmore, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
  • Christopher Legner
  • Santosh Pandey, Iowa State University
Abstract
The workplace influences the safety, health, and productivity of workers at multiple levels. To protect and promote total worker health, smart hardware, and software tools have emerged for the identification, elimination, substitution, and control of occupational hazards. Wearable devices enable constant monitoring of individual workers and the environment, whereas connected worker solutions provide contextual information and decision support. Here, the recent trends in commercial workplace technologies to monitor and manage occupational risks, injuries, accidents, and diseases are reviewed. Workplace safety wearables for safe lifting, ergonomics, hazard identification, sleep monitoring, fatigue management, and heat and cold stress are discussed. Examples of workplace productivity wearables for asset tracking, augmented reality, gesture and motion control, brain wave sensing, and work stress management are given. Workplace health wearables designed for work-related musculoskeletal disorders, functional movement disorders, respiratory hazards, cardiovascular health, outdoor sun exposure, and continuous glucose monitoring are shown. Connected worker platforms are discussed with information about the architecture, system modules, intelligent operations, and industry applications. Predictive analytics provide contextual information about occupational safety risks, resource allocation, equipment failure, and predictive maintenance. Altogether, these examples highlight the ground-level benefits of real-time visibility about frontline workers, work environment, distributed assets, workforce efficiency, and safety compliance.
Keywords
  • connected worker,
  • connected workplace,
  • workpleace,
  • wearable,
  • device,
  • cloud computing,
  • deep learning,
  • stress monitoring,
  • stress management,
  • heat stress,
  • brain wave,
  • hazard,
  • PPE,
  • occupational risk,
  • occupational safety,
  • productivity
Publication Date
Winter January 2, 2022
DOI
10.1002/aisy.202100099
Citation Information
Patel, V., Chesmore, A., Legner, C.M. and Pandey, S. (2022), Trends in Workplace Wearable Technologies and Connected-Worker Solutions for Next-Generation Occupational Safety, Health, and Productivity. Adv. Intell. Syst., 4: 2100099
Creative Commons license
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.