What makes this hard
Metal enclosures that block communication
Condensers, boilers, absorbers and bunkers are steel vessels. Radio does not propagate reliably out of them, which is exactly when the attendant outside and the entrant inside most need to talk.
Many spaces opened simultaneously
An outage opens the furnace, the absorber, the bunkers and the cable trenches at the same time, with contractors working in all of them. Supervision is spread very thin.
Contractor crews unfamiliar with the spaces
Outage work is largely done by external crews who do not know the plant's specific hazards — the history of a particular bunker, the gases a particular vessel retains.
Rescue difficulty drives consequence
Access is through a restricted manhole, often vertically, often after a climb. A worker who is overcome inside cannot easily be extracted, which is why detection must reach them before they are incapacitated.
What we deploy
A power plant contains more confined spaces than most industrial sites, they are mostly metal, they shield radio signals almost completely, and they are all opened at once during an outage.
- Confined space entry monitoring station at each entry point, with internal and external units joined by cable
- LoRa 2.4 GHz inside the space, so detection and alarming continue in the signal dead zone
- Four-gas monitoring — O₂, CO, H₂S and combustible gas — with custom sensor options for plant-specific atmospheres
- Vital-sign wristband with SOS, so a worker can call for help while still able to
- Entry and exit logging with over-occupancy and overtime alerts for congested outages
- Three-level alarm escalation: entrant, attendant, plant safety platform
What changes on site
Alarms inside the vessel, not just outside it
The wearer's wristband and the internal unit alarm directly, which is the only way a warning reaches an entrant in a steel enclosure where the cloud cannot.
Attendant support that does not depend on line of sight
Video and two-way audio let the attendant see and speak to the entrant while maintaining the count and the permit record, instead of splitting attention between the two.
Outage records that assemble themselves
Atmosphere readings, entrant logs, permit approvals and alarm history are captured as the work happens, so the post-outage review is a query rather than a reconstruction.
A defensible position on contractor entry
Authorisation modes — wristband, wristband plus identity, wristband plus facial verification — mean the entry log reflects who was actually inside, which matters in an incident investigation.
Frequently asked questions
How does communication work inside a steel vessel?
LoRa 2.4 GHz handles the link between the internal unit, the gas detection dome and the wristbands inside the space. The internal unit connects by cable to the external unit, which carries the 4G uplink. Cable distance is 8 m as standard and up to 100 m where the geometry requires it.
Can it send an alarm to someone inside the vessel?
Yes, and that is the design point. The wristband and the internal unit both alarm on threshold breach. In a metal enclosure, a system that only notifies the cloud or the office has not warned the person who is in danger.
How does it handle multiple spaces during an outage?
Each entry point gets its own station, and all of them report to the same platform. The safety office sees every space in one view, with headcount and alarm status per space, which is the practical requirement during a large outage.
What gases should we configure for?
Oxygen, CO, H₂S and combustible gas covers most plant spaces. Bunkers, absorbers and vessels with specific process residues may need other sensors — tell us the space and the process and we will confirm the configuration.
Does it integrate with the plant's existing safety platform?
Interfaces for third-party platform integration are provided and on-premise deployment is available, so the station can act as the field layer beneath the platform the plant already runs.