RFID-based Monitoring of Human Operators for Safety in Outdoor Working Sites

This paper presents a new RFID-based monitoring system for operators working in outdoor scenario and sharing the worksites with Remotely-Controlled Farm Machinery (RCFM). The system is developed within the SMARTGRID Project, funded by the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL, Italy). The method to determine the radial sector of workers or obstacles with respect to the RCFM is firstly presented and the proof-of-concept is realized through an Unmanned Grounded Vehicle (UGV) equipped with commercial-off-the-shelf UHF-RFID hardware. An experimental analysis is conducted in outdoor scenario to assess preliminary performance of the method.