Introduction: This paper presents an innovative device for measuring artificial optic radiations (AOR). AOR are required to be measured in accordance with both Italian and European regulations. The traditional measurement methods do not provide a quantitative measurement of the energy affecting the retina and in particular the fovea. Hence, they are not suitable to assess the real risk to the eye. Furthermore traditional methods are not even able to measure the exposure time (in relation to the position of the head with respect to the source).
Materials and methods: The device permits the acquisition of essential information about AOR source direction and position so as to obtain an evaluation of the relative impact on worker's everyday activity. The device acts as both a wearable personal dosimeter and an instantaneous radiance detector. The main components are: a colour light sensor mounted at the centre of a pair of safety goggles (placed on the same line of the worker's sight) used to determine AOR intensity; an inertial/position sensor used for measuring head position/movement, and lastly a video camera to localize emission sources and generate the background in augmented reality visualization. The device is connected by means of a thin, flexible cable to a datalogger and/or netbook? for recording data.
Results: the experiments were carried out in order to evaluate AOR sources during work activity; the results obtained and duly processed are presented in the paper.
Conclusion: the aims are to achieve work place safety zoning so as to distinguish unsafe from safe areas, and not only specific dangerous areas, via analysis and integration of the overlapping pieces of information obtained with the proposed device.