HCI-Based Wireless System for Measuring the Concentration of Mining Machinery and Equipment Operators

Abstract

Maintaining stable and reliable working conditions is a matter of vital importance for various companies, especially those involving heavy machinery. Due to human exhaustion, as well as unpredicted hazards and dangerous situations, the personnel has to take actions and wisely plan each move. This paper presents a human–computer interaction (HCI)-based system that uses a concentration level measurement function to increase the safety of machine and equipment operators. The system has been developed in response to the results of user experience (UX) analyses of the state of occupational safety, which indicate that the most common cause of accidents is the so-called insufficient concentration while performing work. The paper presents the reasons for addressing this issue and a description of the proposed electroencephalography (EEG)-based solution in the form of a concentration measurement system concept. We discuss in-field measurements of such a prototype solution, together with an analysis of obtained results. The method of implementing a wireless communication interface is also provided, along with a visualization application.

Keywords

• EEG (electroencephalography)
• HCI (human–computer interaction)
• mining
• occupational safety
• swarm intelligence
• UX (user experience)