A Hazardous Area Personal Monitoring System for Operators in Gas Depots and Storage Tanks

Abstract

This work describes a smart monitoring system for the detection of flammable gas residues, toxic gases, and reduced oxygen concentrations. The proposed system aims at reducing the risk of fires and explosions, thus increasing the safety of workers engaged in maintenance or inspection of gas storages. The monitoring system is based on compact battery-powered wearable sensor nodes containing sensors for LPG flammable compounds, toxic gases, and oxygen. The designed system can also increase plants safety by incorporating an intrusion detection system, which prevents unauthorized access to safety-critical areas to prevent accidents. The sensor nodes transmit data through a LoRa low power radio channel to a remote server whereas they allow for the identification of the operators for the access to restricted areas exploiting a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) proximity technique.