Hyundai Engineering and Construction (Hyundai E&C) strengthens safety management that prioritizes construction site safety. The company additionally developed functions to respond to infection, flooding, and fire accidents, which have recently gained attention as key safety issues, for its safety management system, Hyundai IoT Safety System (HIoS), which was internally developed by Hyundai E&C for the first time in the industry in 2019. It now provides a total of seven construction site safety services, including the four existing accident response functions (worker location control, gas leakage detection in closed spaces, T/C collision prevention, and environmental complaint management).

[Image of technology applied to Hyundai E&C’s Daegu National Computing & Information Center]

The ‘IoT safety detection system’ developed by Hyundai Institute of Construction Technology is a group of functions responding to infections, fire, and floods added to the company’s IoT-based construction site safety management platform, HIoS. It is expected to detect health abnormalities in workers and abnormal events at construction sites to prevent safety accidents and improve work productivity. It is currently applied comprehensively to Hyundai E&C’s smart construction innovation site, Daegu National Computing & Information Center. And the company plans to expand the system to other sites, pioneering the effort to enhance safety in construction sites.

Responding to workers’ infection
Thermal imaging cameras are connected to entry gates at construction sites to check workers’ temperatures when entering the site and refusing entry to workers with symptoms of fever. All movements on-site are continuously tracked so that the details of each worker’s movement path such as areas he or she worked at and time stamps are stored as big data on HIoS. The data helps identify a worker’s movement in the recent two weeks and any contact with other workers in less than a minute, quickly providing necessary information to the government or relevant authorities in investigating COVID-19 confirmed cases. The system also minimizes the spread of infection by blocking entry into construction sites and enabling quarantine and epidemiological investigation. It identifies and sets up areas to suspend construction work by analyzing workers’ movements and enables timely infection prevention and control measures, minimizing the risk of further infection.

Flood response function
Hyundai E&C developed a flood response function that collects and delivers real-time flooding and water level data to enable preventative response to the risk of floods at underground construction sites such as underwater tunnels and deep underground super long tunnels. The flood response function, especially, can be effective in construction site management during rainy seasons such as the summer wet season. Flood sensors installed across construction sites measure whether they are in contact with water in an on/off method, providing information on its location and status.
Water level sensors measure the distance from the sensor’s location to the surface, managing the remaining water level to overflow. If a sensor measures any level below or above pre-determined threshold, the system alerts different levels of warnings and danger and provides status updates in real time to a safety manager or a pre-designated manager through SMS. These water level and flood sensors allow data collection not only per each different area, but also the entire construction site, enabling comprehensive and efficient site management.

Fire response function
Hyundai E&C also developed a technology that detects and alerts oil mist or inflammable gas leakages that may occur at construction sites to respond to potential fire accidents. Sensors are linked and connected to make up a network of various gas sensors along with a portable network to respond to different points of gas leaks according to types of construction work.

Oil mist sensors provide data per gas type in charts, which enable post-management. Like flood sensors, when a level below or above a pre-determined threshold is detected, the system provides status updates in real time via SMS to a safety manager or a pre-designated manager.

An official at Hyundai E&C said, “we are dedicated to enhancing construction site safety through a smart safety management system that matches the status of a global construction company by continuously analyzing big data collected from workers’ location and sensor data stored on HIoS.”