GEC considers mass production of power safety devices | Goa News

PONDA: Power Minister Ramakrishna ‘Sudhin’ Dhavalikar had indicated his intention to procure smart watches and smart helmet gadgets from Goa Engineering College (GEC), Farmagudi Ponda, for the safety of line workers in the power department in August 2024, with GEC eyeing mass production of the inventions. GEC intends to make the ‘power check’ device affordable and available to common man, especially electricians who have to work on live wires and cables regularly.
GEC first came up with the helmet and then introduced the same concept to a wristwatch, both of which alert the wearer from a certain distance if an electrical wire is live.
A beep and light alert the wearer to live wires before they come into contact with electricity.
GEC’s device has been devised to protect power line workers and members of the public who may come into contact with live electrical wiring. The engineering team studied recent cases of power-related accidents in which people had been injured, said Jayesh Priolkar, associate professor at GEC’s Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (E&E).
TOI regularly reports on cases of power department employees losing their lives to electrocution, drawing attention to the lack of safety equipment for linemen and line helpers.
According to Prof. Priolkar, the project was initially conceived as part of the final year curriculum of two of his students, Abhinav Naik and Tanay Kurtalker. He said the device works using the induction effect (which refers to a changing magnetic field) and capacitance (the ability of an object or material to store an electric charge). When the device is brought near a live electric wire, the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on the helmet and wristwatch light up and the device emits a beep.
This is a warning signal to the owner or wearer of the gadget that the wire or cable is energized.The gadget pilot has already been tested by the GEC team and is kept in a ready condition.
Because the gadget is still in development, the size of the watch is a bit on the larger side, something Priolkar and his students are working to fix, and the team is also in the early stages of planning to mass-produce the gadget, bringing down the cost to make it affordable.
“Initially we came up with only a helmet. But as helmets are not worn every time, we decided to try a wristwatch. Priolkar and his students have nailed it,” said Vinayak N Shet, head of the E & E department.
Stephen Fenandez, the state’s chief electrician, said that once the device’s effectiveness has been fully tested, the state’s power department plans to procure it for use by linemen and other personnel who work on electrical wires.

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