There are no second chances when it comes to working with electricity.
Each year, 4700 people are killed in electrical accidents worldwide, with 10 power line incidents every single day in Australia.
Almost half (48 per cent) of all fatal electrical accidents in Australia are caused by overhead power line contact – usually between a machine and a power line.
With a background in electrical engineering, Karl Rosewarne has been called to the scene of many tragic electrical accidents over the course of his career.
Seeing the loss of life that could have been avoided, he was inspired to do something about it.
“The aftermaths of the accidents I witnessed have been embedded in my brain ever since,” Rosewarne said. “I could see that the problem was human interaction with power lines. There was no way of removing the danger completely, but I knew there had to be a way of removing the issues associated with the hazard.”
Having grown up on an isolated sheep station in New South Wales, Rosewarne was used to thinking outside the box.
“When you live in the middle of nowhere, you have to think differently to city dwellers because you can’t just pop into a Bunnings,” he said.
“The way I was brought up was, there’s a solution to every problem – you just have to find it.”
So, Rosewarne got to thinking – and figured that engineering was the only answer.
“I spent five years experimenting with different concepts of what would be practicable.
“I founded my own company, Protective Engineered Safety, and ultimately I came up with product called GoUpSafely.
“GoUpSafely is capable of sensing nearby power lines, sending a warning to the operator but also physically preventing the machine from making contact with that power line. The system then allows the machine to move out of harm’s way.”
Protective Engineered Safety now designs, engineers, manufactures and supplies multiple industries around the world with equipment for electrical hazard identification and accident prevention.
As well as GoUpSafely, Rosewarne invented a product called Protective Shield, which identifies potential hazards before an elevated work platform (EWP) incident occurs.
“Everyone deserves to go home safely from work,” he said. “Our products give workers that extra line of defence that can make all the difference.”
GoUpSafely
With GoUpSafely, if a machine approaches a live power line, alerts – starting with an amber warning – will be sent to a display that sits inside the cabin.
“You will hear beeping and a notification will come up on the screen as the machine moves closer to the power line,” Rosewarne explained. “If you continue to move closer and the situation becomes dangerous, the beeping will change to a solid tone and GoUpSafely will automatically stop the machine.
“That’s the difference between our system and any other system on the market. It doesn’t matter how determined the operator is to come to harm – the machine will be stopped.”
Rosewarne said this control integration can save lives and prevent damage to valuable equipment, but if operators prefer, they can opt for an alert-only system that will not stop the machine. They can also choose different alert mechanisms, including control panels, sirens and light poles. The GoUpSafely system can be fitted to cranes, excavators, tipper trucks, fire trucks, concrete pumps, bore drills, and many other machine types.
“Typically, GoUpSafely can be applied to any machine that may come into contact with HV (high voltage) sources,” said Rosewarne.
No false alarms
Free from interference from radio and other devices, Protective’s technology makes sure that every detection is a live power line.
Its frequency sensors can tell the difference between harmless or static electricity and a hazard, eliminating nuisance alarms and ensuring operator confidence.
“Every voltage power line puts out some kind of an electric field – and even humans have an electric field or frequency that we operate at,” Rosewarne said. “So, our system will check for an electric field, but it will then also check for frequency.
“If that frequency happens to be 50 hertz or 60 hertz, plus or minus two per cent, then it starts to flag the warning process, because the system then knows what you’re approaching is really live.”
Detecting DC
GoUpSafely can already detect high-voltage power, and Protective is currently working on the product’s capability to detect Direct Current (DC) electricity.
“At the moment we can help about 90 per cent of rail networks, as most of them are high voltage,” said Rosewarne.
“We are working on the DC side which will encompass pretty much all rail networks, including the tram networks and smaller, private and semi-private rail networks.”
Rosewarne said there is currently nothing on the market that can detect DC, which is leaving rail workers in danger.
“At the moment, the only option is using human spotters, and they’re looking for an electric field – which is something you can’t really see.
“Complacency is a huge issue because some of the older operators have been doing this for 35 or 40 years, and they start to think ‘Well, we haven’t hit a power line yet, we must be safe!’ If your eyesight is not what it used to be, that’s a danger too. It barely takes three or four seconds for a fatal incident to happen.”
Protective’s DC detection will undergo live testing in Melbourne in the coming months, and Rosewarne expects it will be ready to hit the Australian market by July 2025.
Flexibility for operators
GoUpSafely comes with a smartphone app that allows users to adjust the sensitivity band for alternating current (AC) detection.
“You can adjust how much notice you get as you approach powerlines – for example, if you’ve got a crane that’s working in a 22-kilovolt area but this afternoon it will be in a 132-kilovolt area, that’s a pretty big difference,” Rosewarne said.
“At 22 kilovolts you’re going to get an alert three to four metres from the power line, but if you moved to the 132-kilovolt area without adjusting GoUpSafely, that would mean you would be getting an alert at 10 to 15 metres away.
“That would be a bit of a pain as you wouldn’t be able to work anywhere near a power line without an alarm going off, so we’ve allowed operators that flexibility to change the sensitivity.”
Rosewarne said this function will also be introduced for GoUpSafely’s DC detection.
Patented protection
GoUpSafely is patented in 57 countries around the world. Rosewarne said this was a lengthy and expensive process, but worth it.
“GoUpSafely is the only system in the world that can integrate with a machine’s control system to physically prevent powerline contact,” he said. “We wanted to protect the intellectual property.
“We’re really happy with our product, we spent such a long time working on it and we’re trying to do something really good for the industry.
“We didn’t want anyone to play with it and inadvertently do damage by bringing something into the market that wasn’t going to be as good.”
In the European Union, power line detection will be mandatory from January 2027.
“You will no longer be allowed to have a machine operating near power lines on any work site in EU countries without power line detection, so it’s starting to happen at a legislative level,” Rosewarne said.
The ultimate safeguard
Although GoUpSafely’s sensitivity can be adjusted and control integration is optional, once it’s installed, it can’t be bypassed.
“It’s the ultimate safety mechanism,” said Rosewarne. “It totally removes the human element and protects people from themselves.”
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