Recently, interest in safety management and accident prevention at industrial sites has been increasing, and harmful gases that cause acute poisoning are the main cause due to the nature of accidents in enclosed spaces. In particular, carbon monoxide poisoning at construction sites and hydrogen sulfide poisoning at sewage treatment plants account for more than 50% of all accidents, and solutions are being studied to reduce human accidents.
As of 2020, Korea's enclosed space workshops are identified as 5,042 public sewage treatment facilities, 1,946 construction sites ordered by local governments such as sewage pipelines, 3,288 pig farms, and 8,326 construction sites. The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency recommend measuring the concentration of oxygen and harmful gases before working in a enclosed space and providing sufficient ventilation. However, suffocation in the enclosed space occurs every year, and the incidence is not decreasing even though it is very dangerous and the mortality rate is high. In particular, when an accident occurs to a worker working in a sewer pipe or a enclosed space, it is difficult to check from the outside and it is easy to lead to a personal injury. Therefore, there is a need for a remote measurement system that allows an operator to check the concentration of harmful gas in the enclosed space in advance to prevent suffocation.
Recently, research on safety, disaster and catastrophe using the Internet of Things (IoT) has made it easier for us to use technology than in the past due to the development of engineering. In addition to IoT, cloud, and big data, sensors and communication have developed engineeringly, creating an environment where various methods can be tried. Although the enclosed space safety technology using advanced technology is rapidly developing, there is a lack of support for hardware, software and institutional devices that can be used in the right place. Recently, safety management systems such as smart helmets combined with IoT technology and work environment notifications that inform workers of work environment in the enclosed space are applied to the field, but the level is only for show, and it cannot be used effectively even in the field where it has already been applied due to cost burden and inconvenience of wearing.
Prevention of suffocation disaster in enclosed space is continuously necessary, and prevention methods should be prepared by combining technical and institutional supplementation. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a toxic gas measuring device that is inexpensive and easy to apply on-site by utilizing advanced technology reflecting the characteristics of the enclosed space. In order to prevent acute poisoning, it should be possible to measure using a wireless system basically so that it can be measured without a person entering.
The "Research on remote measurement system for the detection of harmful gases in enclosed spaces" presented in this paper measures the concentration of harmful gases using a wireless communication system to reflect the characteristics of enclosed spaces that are generally difficult to access. In addition to the oxygen concentration, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide gas measured in the existing system to measure effective harmful gases, the system was built by adding the temperature and humidity conditions of the enclosed space and carbon dioxide gas sensors. The Lab chamber experiment was conducted to verify the performance of the proposed remote measurement system and the built system was evaluated.