Enhancing Industrial Workplace Safety With Internet of Things Using Arduino Micro-Controller

Abstract

IoT (Internet of Things) technologies are widely used in many industrial sectors as a result of their rising technological performance and reduced buying costs. For these reasons, IoT has been considered for use in many emerging fields of application, such as workplace safety. The industry workplace which comprises human and nonhuman factors is becoming more saturated on a daily. These rising activities expose and make the industrial environment prone to uncertainties, e.g. accidents, injuries, explosions, fire outbreaks, and other industrial hazards that undermine man’s industrial environment safety. However, over the past few years, IoT technologies have proffered industrial solutions for a variety of industrial projects, particularly to dynamically manage safety levels at complex workplaces. In this work, an enhanced IoT-based industrial safety system is developed and implemented using an Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino serves as an interface between the different sensors that sense signals from the environment and send messages to the Buzzer/GSM module/Internet. The Arduino is programmed to send a signal and activate the buzzer whenever the sensors sense a value <25oc or >35oc (for Temperature sensor) or low intensity (Light sensor) or smoke (Gas sensor) in the environment. A short message (SMS) is delivered to the safety operator/manager’s phone whenever the gas sensor, temperature sensor, or light sensor senses gas leakage, low light intensity, and temperature respectively. It will also activate a buzzer and upload data to a web server for remote access. A performance test of the system shows that the system was able to sense gas leakage, low light intensity, and temperature very accurately at a low response time and over a wide range effectively.