Eaton-Bussmann is a leading engineering firm that specializes in power
management products. At Eaton-Bussmann’s Paul P. Gubany Center for High
Power technology, they test the load capacities of a wide range of electrical
equipment by running high voltages and currents through them. The Gubany
center is one of ten high power test laboratories in the world and is a state of the
art facility for testing and certifying electrical components and assemblies .
Eaton-Bussmann uses this facility to test their own equipment and will also rent
time in their facility to test equipment from other companies.

The test facility is a high risk zone. Only certified personnel are allowed into the facility because many tests will often result in arc flashes and explosions. An arc flash is the light and heat produced from an electric arc with sufficient electrical energy to cause substantial damage. Arc Flashes can cause temperatures of up to 35,000℉ which causes metal conductors in electric terminals to instantly expand and vaporize. An arc flash incident blasts molten level and tremendous concussive forces towards workers who are working on the exploding equipment. To protect themselves, workers must be wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for the given electric terminal they are working on. Each terminal requires workers to wear different levels of PPE based on the terminal’s potential arc energy.

Currently, Eaton-Bussmann has no safety protocol to check that their workers are wearing the correct PPE based on the potential arc energy of a system. Our solution for Eaton-Bussmann is to create a computer vision solution that utilizes facial recognition and QR code detection to identify authorized personnel and make sure the PPE they are wearing meets the PPE rating requirement.