24 TradeEarthmovers.com.au
A
ll toooftenwehearabout the dangers
forestry workers face in their day-to-
day work, and worse, the serious injuries and
fatalities that occur on the job. According to
Safe Work Australia data, as of July 8 there had
been 17 workplace deaths in the agriculture,
forestry and fishing sectors in Australia this
year alone.
Dr Judy Bowen and Associate Professor Annika
Hinze, computer scientists at the University of
Waikato, and Professor Rangi Matamua from
the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Studies in
New Zealand are devising a technological way
to keep forestry workers safer on the job. One
idea being developed is a shirt with sensors that
will tell workers when they are becoming tired,
or are dehydrated.
With assistance from Nik Jessop from WorkSafe
New Zealand, they’ve been holding events in
Northland with workers from Lloyd Logging,
Johnson Training Services Ltd and Ngati Hine
Forestry Trust. These are facilitated by Erina
Korahina from the Centre for Health in Tauranga,
and involve talking with workers and their families
and running design activities with them in what’s
called participatory design.Researchers focused on what information
people were prepared to give about themselves
to a piece of technology as well as how they
would then like to receive information about
themselves from it, who should receive it and
how often, and then, once the technology
became available, how would they want to
respond to it and how much detail should the
data provide.
“It’s what they’ll be comfortable with, making
them understand that it’s different from off-the-
shelf measurement devices,” says Bowen.
“It’s not like working in a lab. We’re designing
for an uncontrolled environment. In the forest the
data’s noisy, bits of it can drop out, and people
do unexpected or unpredictable things. The
technology can break. It’s a big challenge, but
it’s a great project because it’s got all these
moving parts.
“How do we come up with an alarm that
signals ‘you’re tired, you’re dehydrated’ from the
combination of streaming data?
“There’s a lot of complex data processing that
has to happen as these smart shirts are going
to be worn every working day and will produce
continuous data.”We’re designing
for an uncontrolled
environment.Top: The smart shirts will
constantly monitor parameters
such as heart rate and
perspiration
Above right: Engineering
student Dylan Exton, creating
a shirt with sensors
TECHNOLOGY
In an effort to improve safety in the
forestry industry, New Zealand
researchers are working on a smart
shirt that monitors fatigue and
dehydrationsmart shirt