TECHNICAL PRODUCTS INC — Department of Transportation SBIR Phase II: 151FR2001

Description

Locomotives weigh up to 240 ton each. Rail cars can weigh from 30 ton (empty) to 140 ton (loaded). Track construction and maintenance equipment, earthmoving plant and haul trucks can all weigh 10’s of tons each. Rail road and yard workers can, literally, be surrounded by these very large, heavy and potentially dangerous pieces of equipment. When a 200-lb worker ‘argues’ with any of these equipment they lose. The Moving Equipment Danger Personal Alert System (MEDPAS) is a worker-worn system that can detect equipment movement that is potentially hazardous to a worker and provide them a warning of that movement, in real time. MEDPAS uses a scanning LIDAR mounted on a stabilized base to continuously detect and track moving objects around the wearer. The system evaluates whether the moving object is a threat and if so it provides the user a warning.