New technology to monitor blind areas near surface mining equipment

The lack of visibility near large earthmoving equipment resulted in six fatalities in US surface mining operations during 2002. Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Spokane Research Laboratory, have evaluated off-the-shelf proximity warning systems that sense obstacles and changes in terrain near such equipment and provide an alarm to the operator. Limitations of these existing systems have necessitated the development of new systems designed specifically for large equipment. A summary of this new technology is presented and includes a description of newly available radar and electronic tag detection systems, a prototype GPS-based proximity warning system, and a computer-assisted stereovision system.