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Plantforce installs Pedestrian Detection System on excavator

Plant hire supplier Plantforce has formed a partnership with FTC Group, installing the latest Pedestrian Detection System on one of its new excavators – a Kobelco SK350LC. With sites getting tighter for space and the inevitable challenges of large machines operating alongside ground-working personnel, one error of judgement can have severe consequences. However, FTC Group has designed and built a system that allows operators to be aware of people entering their machine's working area, which has already proved its worth in the fork-lift material handling sector.

FTC’s Pedestrian Detection Camera, as its name suggests, provides operators with a clear and simple visual and audible alarm system to notify them of people entering the machines working area. The rangefinder is linked to a sophisticated programmed algorithm software, able to distinguish not only between animate and inanimate objects but between people and things.

The ability to tell people from objects makes it a solution that works in a real-world construction site, says its maker. At the heart of the system is a complex algorithm and feeding into that are cameras with a 140-degree field of vision, meaning three or four cameras mounted on a suitably shaped vehicle will give a 360-degree view.

FTC Business Development Manager, Sean Hamill explained, “In essence, this system offers customers a completely modular safety system that is easy to manage and extremely effective, tracking pedestrians in real-time with a full HD screen and any configuration of alerts required. With a detection zone of up to 30 metres, which can be divided into programmable green, amber and red areas, whereby pedestrians are tracked in-cab on an HD screen with each of them marked in red, amber or green dependant on their distance from each fitted camera. It is a bespoke system that is a perfect fit for a wide range of construction equipment.”

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