Personal protective equipment system having analytics engine with integrated monitoring, alerting, and predictive safety event avoidance

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11023818-B2
Application number	US-201715631950-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 23, 2017
Priority date	Jun 23, 2016
Publication date	Jun 1, 2021
Grant date	Jun 1, 2021

Abstract

In some examples, a system includes an article of personal protective equipment (PPE) comprising one or more sensors, the one or more sensors configured to generate usage data that is indicative of an operation of the article of PPE; and at least one computing device comprising a memory and one or more computer processors that: receive the usage data that is indicative of the operation of the article of PPE; apply the usage data to a safety learning model that predicts a likelihood of an occurrence of a safety event associated with the article of PPE based at least in part on previously generated usage data that corresponds to the safety event; and perform, based at least in part on predicting the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event, at least one operation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
an article of personal protective equipment (PPE) associated with one or more sensors, the one or more sensors configured to generate usage data that is indicative of an operation of the article of PPE; and
at least one computing device comprising a memory and one or more computer processors that:
receive the usage data that is indicative of the operation of the article of PPE;
apply the usage data to a safety learning model that predicts a likelihood of an occurrence of a safety event associated with the article of PPE based at least in part on previously generated usage data that corresponds to the safety event;
perform, based at least in part on predicting the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event, at least one operation;

wherein the safety learning model is trained by:
selecting a training set comprising a set of training instances, each training instance comprising an association between usage data and a safety event, wherein the usage data comprise one or more metrics that characterize at least one of a user, a work environment, or one or more articles of PPE; and
for each training instance in the training set, modifying, based on particular usage data and a particular safety event of the training instance, the safety learning model to change a likelihood predicted by the safety learning model for the particular safety event in response to subsequent usage data applied to the safety learning model.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein one or more training instances of the set of training instances are generated from use of one or more articles of PPE after the one or more computer processors perform the at least one operation.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more metrics of the usage data are structured in a feature vector, wherein the safety learning model is a supervised learning model, wherein the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event is included in set of likelihoods of safety events.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event is included in a set of likelihoods of safety events, wherein the one or more computer processors:
select the likelihood of the occurrence as a highest likelihood of occurrence in the set of likelihoods of safety events.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a hub associated with a user and configured to communicate with the article of PPE and the at least one computing device, and wherein the article of PPE is configured to transmit the usage data to the hub, and wherein the hub is configured to transmit the usage data to the at least one computing device.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to generate a set of rules in based on the safety learning model, and transmit the rules to the hub, wherein the hub is configured to communicate with the article of PPE, and wherein the hub is configured to perform at least one operation based on the set of rules and the usage data.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein to perform the at least one operation, the one or more computer processors send a notification to at least one of the article of PPE, a hub associated with a user and configured to communicate with the article of PPE and the at least one computing device, or a computing device associated with a person who is not the user.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the article of PPE comprises at least one of an air respirator system, a fall protection device, a hearing protector, a head protector, a garment, a face protector, an eye protector, a welding mask, or an exosuit.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein to perform the at least one operation, the one or more computer processors send a notification that alters an operation of the article of PPE.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein to perform the at least one operation, the one or more computer processors output for display a user interface that indicates the safety event in association with at least one of a user, a work environment, or the article of PPE.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computer processors:
output for display a user interface comprising one or more input controls that configure a set of one or more articles of PPE.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety learning model is based at least in part on historical data of known safety events from a plurality of articles of PPE having similar characteristics to the article of PPE.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computer processors update the safety learning model based on the usage data from the article of PPE.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety learning model is based at least in part on data of known safety events from one or more devices other than the article of PPE that are in use with the article of PPE.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety learning model is based on at least one of a configuration of the article of PPE, a user of the article of PPE, an environment in which the at article of PPE is used, or one or more other devices that are in use with the article of PPE.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the article of PPE is a respirator, wherein the usage data is representative of activity of a user of the at least one respirator during a time period, and wherein the usage data comprises data indicative of a position of a visor of the at least one respirator, a temperature of a head top of the at least one respirator, a motion of the head top of the at least one respirator, an impact to the head top of the at least one respirator, a position of the head top of the at least one respirator, or a presence of a head in the head top of the at least one respirator.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the article of PPE is a respirator, wherein the usage data is representative of activity of a user of the respirator during a time period, and wherein the usage data comprises data indicative of a state of a blower of the respirator, a pressure of the blower, a run time of the blower, a temperature of the blower, a motion of the blower, an impact to the blower, or a position of the blower.

18. The system of claim 1 , wherein to predict the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event, the one or more computer processors identify anomalous behavior of a user of the article of PPE relative to known safe behavior characterized by the safety learning model.

19. The system of claim 1 , wherein to predict the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event, the one or more computer processors identify regions within a work environment in which the at least one article of PPE is deployed that are associated with an anomalous number of safety events.

20. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein to apply the usage data to the safety learning model the one or more computer processors apply the usage data to a safety learning model that characterizes a motion of a user of the article of PPE, and
wherein to predict the likelihood of the occurrence of the safety event the one or more computer processors determine that the motion of the user over a time period is anomalous for a user of the article of PPE.

21. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein to apply the usage data to the safety learning model, the one or more computer processors apply the usage data to a safety learning model that characterizes an expenditure of a component of the article of PPE by a user of at article of PPE, and
wherein to predict the likelihood

Assignees

• 3M Innovative Properties Co

Inventors

• Awiszus Steven T
• Kanukurthy Kiran S
• Lobner Eric C
• Quintero Robert J
• Johnson Micayla A
• Filloux Madeleine

Classifications

• G06N7/01 Primary

  Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks · CPC title

• G06Q10/063

  Operations research, analysis or management · CPC title

• A61F9/06 Primary

  Masks, shields or hoods for welders · CPC title

• A61F9/067 Primary

  with variable transmission · CPC title

• G06N20/00

  Machine learning · CPC title