System control through a network of personal protective equipment
Assignee3M Innovative Properties Company
InventorsBenjamin W. Watson, Claire R. Donoghue, Nigel B. Boxall
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system includes a piece of equipment and an article of personal protective equipment (PPE) associated with a first worker. The PPE establishes a communications channel between the article of PPE and the piece of industrial equipment, receives status information from the piece of industrial equipment via the communications channel, notifies the worker via the PPE of the status information received from the piece of industrial equipment, receives a response from the worker via the PPE, and transmits to the piece of industrial equipment, via the communications channel and based on the response, commands that cause a change in operation of the piece of industrial equipment.
Claims18
An article of personal protective equipment (PPE), comprising:
- an input device;
- an output device;
- and
- at least one computing device connected to the input device and the output device, the at least one computing device configured to:
- associate the article of PPE with a worker;
- identify a piece of industrial equipment;
- establish a communications channel between the article of PPE and the identified piece of industrial equipment;
- receive status information from the identified piece of industrial equipment via the communications channel;
- notify the worker of the status information received from the identified piece of industrial equipment via the output device;
- receive a response via the input device;
- and
- transmit to the identified piece of industrial equipment, via the communications channel and based on the response, commands that cause a change in operation of the identified piece of industrial equipment.
A system comprising:
- a plurality of articles of personal protective equipment (PPE) connected to form a network of articles of PPE, wherein each article of PPE is associated with a worker assigned to a piece of industrial equipment and wherein each article of PPE includes memory and one or more processors, wherein the memory of each article of PPE includes instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause one or more articles of PPE to:
- identify the worker associated with the PPE and the piece of industrial equipment to which the worker is assigned;
- establish a communications channel with the identified piece of industrial equipment;
- receive status information from the identified piece of industrial equipment via the communications channel;
- notify the worker associated with the respective article of PPE of the status information received from the piece of industrial equipment to which the worker is assigned;
- and
- transmit to the respective piece of industrial equipment via the communications channel and from the respective PPE, commands from the worker that cause a change in operation of the respective piece of industrial equipment.
A method of controlling a piece of industrial equipment, comprising:
- associating an article of PPE with a worker;
- establishing a communications channel between the article of PPE and the piece of industrial equipment;
- receiving status information from the piece of industrial equipment via the communications channel;
- notifying the worker via the PPE of the status information received from the piece of industrial equipment;
- receiving a response from the worker via the PPE;
- and
- transmitting to the piece of industrial equipment, via the communications channel and based on the response, commands that cause a change in operation of the piece of industrial equipment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.