A smart assistive system for laborers is designed and built with a novel integrated three-fold objective. First, it provides workers in excessively hot conditions with some head cooling comfort. Second, it monitors the workers’ health state via his/her heart pulse rate. Third, and in case of danger or emergency, it allows the supervisor to communicate with and locate the worker in distress. Towards this goal, a standard helmet was retro-fitted with a heat sink and a Peltier device both lined for a better thermal insulation and uniform head cooling. Two Java-based mobile applications were developed, one for the worker, the other for the supervisor. The former monitors the worker’s position and his/her heart rate every 30 seconds and sends this information in real time to the supervisor’s mobile application via Google’s Firebase Realtime database. An Arduino microcontroller is used to interface the heart sensor and the Peltier unit to the worker’s mobile application. If the heart rate is found to be out of safe bounds (pre-set by the supervisor), an alarm message is triggered in both applications and a direct communication is attempted between both parties. In case of failure, the worker’s location may be displayed by the supervisor using Google Map for rescue purposes. With an initial cost estimated at $50, the potential benefits of this prototype system were successfully tested achieving a cooling difference of about 4 degrees between the worker’s head and the ambient temperature. With a custom-made helmet and outfit design involving a more efficient thermal insulation and a cooler unit, the merits of this smart system may be extended to higher levels of safety and comfort contributing to a smarter working environment in cities. © 2018 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All rights reserved.

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