Photo: Volvo CE NA
Volvo wants to keep its promise regarding safety and comfort, even when it’s about excavators. This is why it’s patenting a new and improved alarm system that will be of help to workers. And it might become fun to use too!
Volvo says that one of the most dangerous movements of an excavator is the rotation of the upper frame, also known as swing. The company discovered workers tend to be less attentive after working long hours and get closer than they should to excavators. As Volvo points out, humans shouldn’t be reachable by excavators, especially when a swing motion is triggered. This endangers everyone, including the operator.
In a recent filling with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Chinese-owned Swedish company wants to further avoid any problems that can arise from using excavators. The whole point of installing speakers on the mechanical arm of any excavator is to alert those that might get in the way.
The French invention is not just putting some new holes on construction machines used for digging. The speakers Volvo wants to use will only alert people that are in danger of being struck or are too close to the machine. The persons that can be located in the trajectory of the vehicle in movement and who are thus exposed to a risk of collision with the vehicle are warned. The other persons who are not exposed to a risk of a collision with the vehicle hear no sound or almost no sound. The vehicle itself becomes less noisy.
Concerning the invention, a speaker is configured to emit a sound alarm in the direction of movement, when the angle between the orientation of the speaker and the movement's direction is less than 90 degrees. Volvo says that it would prefer it to be less than 30 degrees.
The first sound alarm will have a first pitch, and the second sound alarm will be a second pitch that is of a lower frequency than the first pitch. This will give the person in the zone the feeling that the excavator boom is approaching. To the contrary, this will give the person outside the zone the feeling that the excavator boom is moving away.
We’ll have to wait and see how this will be used and if it will prove as useful as Volvo thinks. It has potential!
In a recent filling with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Chinese-owned Swedish company wants to further avoid any problems that can arise from using excavators. The whole point of installing speakers on the mechanical arm of any excavator is to alert those that might get in the way.
The French invention is not just putting some new holes on construction machines used for digging. The speakers Volvo wants to use will only alert people that are in danger of being struck or are too close to the machine. The persons that can be located in the trajectory of the vehicle in movement and who are thus exposed to a risk of collision with the vehicle are warned. The other persons who are not exposed to a risk of a collision with the vehicle hear no sound or almost no sound. The vehicle itself becomes less noisy.
Concerning the invention, a speaker is configured to emit a sound alarm in the direction of movement, when the angle between the orientation of the speaker and the movement's direction is less than 90 degrees. Volvo says that it would prefer it to be less than 30 degrees.
The first sound alarm will have a first pitch, and the second sound alarm will be a second pitch that is of a lower frequency than the first pitch. This will give the person in the zone the feeling that the excavator boom is approaching. To the contrary, this will give the person outside the zone the feeling that the excavator boom is moving away.
We’ll have to wait and see how this will be used and if it will prove as useful as Volvo thinks. It has potential!
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