A survey on proximity monitoring and warning in construction

TL;DR

This survey comprehensively reviews recent advances in proximity monitoring and warning systems in construction, highlighting current methods, limitations, and future research directions to improve onsite safety.

Contribution

It provides a detailed bibliometric and qualitative analysis of 97 articles, identifying key trends, influential researchers, and challenges in proximity monitoring and warning technologies.

Findings

Identified five influential research leaders and two major research networks.

Highlighted limitations in current proximity perception methods.

Suggested future directions including 3D object detection and multimodal fusion.

Abstract

Various technologies have been applied to monitor the proximity between two construction entities, preventing struck-by accidents and thereby enhancing onsite safety. This study comprehensively reviews related efforts dedicated to proximity monitoring and warning (PMW) based on 97 relevant articles published between 2010 and 2024. The bibliometric analysis reveals the technical roadmap over time, as well as the five most influential leaders and the two largest research networks they have established. The qualitative review is then conducted from four perspectives: influencing factor study, hazard level definition and determination, proximity perception, and alarm issuing and receiving. Finally, the limitations and challenges of current proximity perception are discussed, along with corresponding future research directions, including end-to-end three-dimensional (3D) object detection, real-time 3D reconstruction and updating for dynamic construction scenes, and multimodal fusion. This review presents the current research status, limitations, and future directions of PMW, guiding the future development of PMW systems.