Automation In

Construction
Automating the blind spot measurement of
construction equipment

Under the Guidance of

By,
Shobhit Chaturvedi
13BCL035,13BCL036,13BC Faculty at
L040, Department of Civil Engineering
13BCL041,13BCL043 Pandit Deendayal Petroleum
University
Index
Introduction
Background
Methodology
Execution of Research Task
Experimental Validation of Blind Spot Measurement Tool
Conclusion
References
Introduction
Equipment related fatalities account for about 25% of all
construction fatalities in the United States. One leading
indicator for equipment related incidents are blind spots
that are prevalent around most construction equipment,
inhibiting the operator's visibility of personnel and vital
materials on jobsites. Incidents such as injuries and fatalities
do occur because operators or ground personnel fail to
identify that other objects can be in too close proximity to the
work envelope they are operating in.
An automated blind spot detection tool is presented that
determines the equipment blind spots rapidly and in 3D
through analyzing the point cloud data from a laser scan
inside the equipment cab.
 Blind spots on construction equipment resulting in poor
operator visibility are one of the leading causes of contact
collisions in the construction industry.
Blind spots create problems for operators by restricting their
line-of-sight and eliminating their view of personnel,
materials on the ground, and other equipment being close to
their own work envelope (area of operation).
Safety statistics published in the 2009 Census of Fatal
Occupational Injuries (CFOI) demonstrate that the
construction industry accounts for about 21% of all
occupational fatalities, or 1204 of 5657 total workplace
related fatalities in 2007. The construction industry's rate of
fatal occupational injuries equals about 10.5 per 100,000
workers whereas the annual total rate of all fatal occupational
injuries was 3.8 respectively.
 This presentation focuses on demonstrating the importance of
several key aspects:
1. Understanding the impact blind spots have on construction
safety through reviewing relevant safety statistics that have
been reported.
2. Explaining existing standards, rules, and practical
approaches that are currently applied in preventing
injuries and fatalities related to construction equipment
blind spots.
3. Providing new measurement approaches that do not rely on
existing equipment CAD models and thus have the
potential to solve limitations in (1) and (2), and
demonstrating and discussing results of the developed new
approach.
Background
Equipment operators may face several challenges related to
equipment blind spots:
i. They are typically very familiar with or have little or no
expertise in handling an equipment type.
ii. The training and awareness of blind spots has expired or
has lead to complacency.
iii. They are frequently or temporarily using equipment and
require assistance in controlling all blind spots at the same
time.
. To overcome these limitations, heavy equipment manufacturers
and researchers have conducted time consuming manual blind
spot measurements on equipment in the design stage, on
original manufactured and used equipment.
 The following points reviews existing blind spot
measurement, warning techniques, and articulates a needs
statement
1. Current methods for measuring blind spots
2. Warning systems addressing blind spots
3. Need for advanced blind spot measurement for construction
equipment
Methodology
Blind spot measurement of construction equipment is an
important safety issue. Several shortcomings of existing
research can be improved.

A laser scanner is used to measure the geometrical properties

of construction vehicles-in-use.

Computational algorithms are developed to automatically

identify spatial (and 2D) blind spots from heavy construction
equipment in field environments.
 Design of blind spot experiments utilizing a laser scanner;
design of the developed automated blind spot measurement
tool using a ray tracing algorithm; experimental data
collection; validation of blind spot measurement tool, results
and analysis; and identification of potential applications,
research recommendations and future work.
Execution of Research task
1) Laser scan data as input for automated blind spot
measurement tool.
Laser scans of heavy construction vehicles like excavators,
dump trucks, motor graders, rollers, wheel loaders, and smaller
heavy equipment were taken from outside the vehicle.
All recorded points (around 1.5 million per scan; varies per
scan) were registered and stored in a point cloud file. The point
cloud file was converted to a comma separated variable (CSV)
file that has x, y, and z-coordinate representation of each
distance point. This CSV file became the input to the
developed blind spot calculation and analysis tool.
2. Ray-tracing algorithm
The developed automated blind spot calculation tool uses a ray
tracing approach to calculate blind spots of any of the selected
construction machines.
Ray tracing is similar to the idea of using a perfect light source
from the driver's perspective. Traced is the imaginary path of
light emanating from the light source. Should rays from this
imaginary light source hit a distance point the laser scanner
measured, the further part of the ray would be considered a
blind spot line.
Repeating this process for all distance measurements, results in
a blind spot.
3. Grid representation of equipment
Since the laser scanner provides a dense cloud of distance
points, a flexible 3D cube system was designed to handle error
measurements of the laser scanner as well as to reduce the
computational power required for analyzing for blind spot
volumes.
Effectively, the workspace close by the equipment (work
envelope) is initially divided into a virtual world of cubes. To
simplify the use of the algorithm, a three dimensional grid was
fixed to 300~300~300 cubes. The cube size is variable and is
set by the user.
4. Automated blind spot
measurement tool
To limit the computational burden of the blind spot calculation
algorithm further, the developed tool allows to placing a
sphere of radius R and origin O at any point in the point cloud.

The tool user is given a choice setting the origin and size of the
radius of the sphere inside or outside the equipment, with
preference placing O inside the cab (at the operator's eye-
position).
 5. Blind spot location detection,
recording and analysis
The
goal of the automated blind spot location detection, recording,
and analysis tool is to gain detailed blind spot information, for
example, the ratio of blind spots vs. visible space, or when worker son-
foot are visible and when not. To calculate the percentage of blind
spots in the 3D grid, the number of cubes that are labeled as part of
blind spots, and number of cubes that are labeled visible are
counted. The ratio of the space that belongs to blind spots can then be
defined as:

Spatial Blind Spot Ratio .% =

. The principle of limited field-of-view (FOV) of laser scanners
(left image, image courtesy: [10]) and as applied in this research (right image
 Experimental validation of blind
spot measurement tool
The developed blind spot tool was designed to automatically
compute the:
(1) Percentage of blind spots in the work envelope (plane) of
construction equipment,
(2) Visibility of a person when standing in proximity to
equipment (calculation based on planar blind spot
measurement), and
(3) Ratio of blind spots from a spatial perspective.
 First Experiment: Blind spot areas

Plan view of
Plan view of
the blind
the blind
spots (blue
spots (blue
areas) of a
areas) of a
pick-up truck
dozer in a
in a 10 m
10 m radius.
radius
Manual blind spot calculation at ground level: bulldozer
(left image) and pick-up truck (right image)
 A clean windshield, for example, is very important for the
operator's visibility. Dirty windshields may reflect scan points off
of the windshield instead of going through the window and
recording a point on the ground.
It is interesting to note that the selected excavator has a larger
blind spot than the selected articulated dump truck.
A reason for this observation is the boom of the excavator that is
blocking the operator's field of view.
Experiment 2: Worker visibility
In the second experiment the visibility of a person standing on
the ground was calculated while varying the distance from the
person to the construction equipment.
This component of the developed blind spot measurement tool
allows the opportunity to effectively visualize which locations
around equipment are more dangerous than others.
Assumptions that were made include: The roof and floor of the
equipment cabin, complement existing safety training and
education efforts, windshields that were detected as dirty or
cracked etc.
Using manual measurement during field experiments, it was
observed that on average up to 2.5% additional blind spot areas
must be added to compensate for imperfections in the blind
spot measurement.
 Dense range point
A worker's visibility at different locations (A, B,
cloud for a bulldozer
and C) close to equipment.
Experiment 3: Blind spot volume
In this experiment, the number of cubes used in the blind space
detection tool adjusts automatically with the radius selected.
For computational reasons, the maximum number of cubes was
300300300 and the radius was R=10m.
Due to the size of the cabin and fixtures on the equipment (i.e.
mirrors and guard rails), each of the equipment will have a
unique and minimum radius to measure the blind spot volume.
It can be concluded that at approximately 3 m distance from
the origin of the laser beam, all solid objects on the equipment
are included for the spatial blind spot assessment.
Blind spot volume in [%] vs. distance from operator's eye [m].
Conclusion
Equipment related incidents account for a large number of
injuries and fatalities in construction. Construction equipment
blind spots are identified to be the cause for poor operator
visibility. Existing practices have been developed for
measuring blind spots but have limitations in the measurement
approach as well as functionality
A novel blind spot measurement tool was developed. The
terminology and a methodology that was used to determine
blind spots were explained in detail
The functionality of the developed blind spot measurement
tool was demonstrated under real construction conditions.
 It is envisioned that fully automated blind spot detection,
worker-on-foot detection, real time pro-active alert devices can
be integrated in the operation of heavy equipment on
construction sites and elsewhere.
Reference
BLS, Fatal Occupational Injuries by Event or
Exposure, 20012006, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2007<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.toc.ht
m>. (Accessed July 12, 2008).
BLS, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI)
Current and Revised Data, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2009
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm#2007
(Accessed May 10, 2009).
D.E. Fosbroke, Studies on Heavy Equipment Blind
Spots and Internal Traffic Control, Roadway Work
Zone Safety & Health Conference, Baltimore, MD,
2004.
C.E. Fullerton, B.S. Allread, J. Teizer, Pro-active
Thank You!!!