Wastewater treatment has irreplaceable value in ensuring the reuse of water resources, maintaining the quality of the water environment and ecological balance. However, the rapid development of the wastewater treatment industry in recent years has led to frequent safety accidents in wastewater treatment plants, which have brought great losses to employees and enterprises.

Therefore, to enhance the safety awareness and operation skills of the water industry personnel and strengthen the enterprise safety management system has become a key issue to be solved in the modern sewage treatment industry, and only through the continuous improvement of the level of safety management can we ensure that the sewage treatment work is carried out safely and efficiently.

Client Profile

A wastewater treatment plant in Fuzhou was put into formal operation in January 2023, with an operation time of 10 years. The wastewater plant adopts advanced A2O+MBR process, and the effluent water quality requirements are implemented in accordance with the Class I-A standard of "Comprehensive Sewage Discharge Standard" (part of the indexes are implemented in the surface IV), with a daily sewage treatment capacity of 20,000 tonnes.

The sewage treatment plant effectively solve the old city of a river culvert sewage into the Dragon River caused by pollution, while the treatment of 20,000 tonnes / day of compliant water has become one of the important sources of water replenishment of the Dragon River, the Department of the Dragon River sewage consolidation and remediation of a powerful initiative.

Customer Pain Points

Underground sewage treatment plant due to the complex structure, ventilation restrictions, easy to accumulate toxic, flammable substances, and the treatment process is prone to produce hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases, increasing the risk of poisoning, asphyxiation, explosion. Operators working in this environment face life-threatening situations, and in the event of an accident, blind rescue may exacerbate casualties. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure the safety of underground sewage treatment plant, which is still facing various problems and challenges in safety management.

(1) Personnel management:
Due to the diversity of work types and the dispersed nature of positions, it is difficult to effectively supervise the efficiency and safety of operators and outsiders.

(2) Inspection management:
some inspectors have a weak sense of responsibility and it is common for them not to work according to regulations. No one supervises the inspection operation, the process cannot be traced, and the quality is difficult to ensure; the management end is backward in terms of management means, and there are cases such as omission of points and avoidance of detailed inspection.

(3) Hazardous area management:
Due to the lack of on-site supervision, non-operators mistakenly enter the hazardous area or stay there for an excessive period of time, increasing the potential safety hazards.

(4) Emergency Rescue Management:
Due to the complex underground structure of the wastewater treatment plant and the unclear distribution of personnel, there is a lack of targeted rescue strategies in emergency situations, and it is difficult to formulate the most appropriate rescue plan. Once an accident occurs, it is impossible to quickly determine the specific location of the trapped personnel, which may miss the valuable rescue time, increasing the difficulty and risk of rescue.

Solution

Woxu Wireless closely combined with the development trend of domestic intelligent water affairs, and the sewage plant in-depth discussion of its current challenges. Through a series of in-depth discussions and programme optimization, both parties jointly explored a solution more in line with the actual needs, and decided to adopt the advanced AP+UWB dual-network solution.

This solution deploys wireless access points and UWB positioning modules in key working areas, such as membrane area, tank area, biochemical tanks, etc., to provide real-time and accurate positioning for all kinds of personnel in the plant. This not only ensures the wireless communication coverage of the plant, but also realises the intelligent safety management of personnel in complex and dangerous environments. With the help of this personnel positioning system, the sewage plant is able to build a comprehensive, visualised, traceable and controllable safety protection system, so as to effectively deal with the difficulties of safety production and promote the intelligent transformation and upgrading of the sewage plant.

Application Functions

Real-time positioning of personnel in complex environments
Adopting Woxu Wireless personnel safety management solution, real-time location monitoring of the positioning object through 2D/3D map, mastering personnel dynamics at any time, clearly locating the position of the personnel in the sewage treatment plant area, achieving safe and controllable work of the personnel in the plant area, visual presentation of the data, and greatly improving the safety control ability.

Dangerous area automatic alarm
By setting up the electronic fence, it effectively prevents personnel from mistakenly entering the restricted area and violating the operation, and improves the area control ability. For key monitoring areas, the system is able to intelligently identify abnormal personnel behaviours, such as staying overtime or failing to reach the specified time, and instantly issue an alarm. In the automated operation area, once a person breaks into the area, the system will immediately sound the alarm, and you can view the scene in real time through the video linkage to realise intelligent management.

SOS one-key call for help
Personnel in emergency situations can take the initiative to call for help by positioning the SOS button on the label, and the system automatically and quickly determines the location of the personnel in the alarm area, so as to realise the nearby scheduling and rapid response of the security rescue force.

Intelligent Inspection Control
The system supports intelligent inspection management, using high-precision positioning technology, can be preset inspection tasks, and record the path of the inspector track and the length of stay at the point, automatically generating detailed inspection reports, the whole process of monitoring the inspection process, to ensure the quality of work. At the same time, combined with the security cameras to achieve video linkage, the central control room management background can easily access the regional monitoring screen, effectively saving manpower and material resources, significantly improving management efficiency.

Health data monitoring
Smartwatch positioning tags, in addition to real-time positioning, can also monitor personnel heart rate, blood oxygen and other vital signs data, to further enhance the safety monitoring and management of personnel.

One-key evacuation
When there is a danger in a certain area of the factory and personnel need to be evacuated, the ground dispatcher or system manager can send an emergency evacuation notice to the personnel in the dangerous area, and the personnel in the dangerous area can receive the "evacuation" signal.

Area Statistics
Accurately count the number of personnel and specific personnel information in the whole plant and a certain area (e.g., working face), which can buy more time for emergency rescue.

Value Summary
This wastewater plant achieves accurate tracking of personnel in the plant area with sub-metre accuracy by adopting the UWB personnel positioning system of Woxu Wireless. The positioning system is able to present real-time personnel location data and provide visual support for management, which not only greatly improves the level of safety control in the plant, but also ensures the safety of the staff. Currently, Woxu's personnel positioning system has been widely used in many sewage treatment plants across China, promoting these plants to achieve the "four" management, i.e. standardisation, visualisation, transparency and intelligence, to ensure that their operation is both safe and efficient.