Flannery Plant Hire has worked with Finning UK & Ireland to trial a smart detection system under development by Caterpillar, that will reduce construction fatalities and injuries.
Known as Cat Personnel Detection, the system alerts operators if someone is too close to their machine, thereby reducing the risk of injury to ground personnel.
The two-year product development trial involved fitting the smart camera system to eight machines, including excavators and dozers, working on HS2 sites. Feedback from the trial was collected by the team at Finning and relayed directly to the product team at Caterpillar for further development.
The system includes a single rear-facing camera and a 10-inch high-resolution touchscreen display with smart detection. It allows operators to zoom in and has a 170-degree field of vision with target areas set at 20, 10, and 5m, each relating to different colour zones and risk levels.
“Where Cat Personnel Detection differs from other smart detection systems is that it can specifically identify people from objects and will trigger an operator response because it sounds either an intermittent or solid alarm depending on how close they are to the machine,” said Chris Phillips, product manager and quality engineer for Finning.
