Health & safety 4.0: A digital twin reference model to support the smart operator at the workplace

In the Industry 4.0 era, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things are the enabling technologies for a new tool, the Digital Twin, that allows a streamlined communication, automation and interoperability among all the production assets. Even if there has been a great deal of efforts toward digital twin engineering, little attention has been paid to the correct integration of humans in the emerging context of smart factories and, in particular, to the potential contribution of digital twins for supporting a health and safety 4.0 at the workplace. This paper sets the stage for a discussion over health and safety aspects for the Smart Operator and proposes a renewed approach to the theme in the context of industry 4.0, aimed at exploiting the value of digital information in improving the wellness and safety conditions of workers. A digital twin reference model has been developed that illustrates how to extract and analyze real-time safety information, to detect potential hazardous situations and to send out alerts to the smart operators that are using Augmented Reality devices, such as smartphones or tablets, at the workplace. Insights about digital twin-based operator’s health and safety are reported on the basis of preliminary experimental tests carried out on a hand held shaker for olives harvesting to assess the hand-arm exposure to vibration.