{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,1]],"date-time":"2026-04-01T18:52:27Z","timestamp":1775069547872,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":67,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,9]],"date-time":"2024-04-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1712620800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Basque Government","award":["KK-2021\/00082"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["KK-2021\/00082"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In order to reduce the accident risk in road construction and maintenance, this paper proposes a novel solution for road-worker safety based on an untethered real-time locating system (RTLS). This system tracks the location of workers in real time using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology and indicates if they are in a predefined danger zone or not, where the predefined safe zone is delimited by safety cones. Unlike previous works that focus on road-worker safety by detecting vehicles that enter into the working zone, our proposal solves the problem of distracted workers leaving the safe zone. This paper presents a simple-to-deploy safety system. Our UWB anchors do not need any cables for powering, synchronisation, or data transfer. The anchors are placed inside safety cones, which are already available in construction sites. Finally, there is no need to manually measure the positions of anchors and introduce them to the system thanks to a novel self-positioning approach. Our proposal, apart from automatically estimating the anchors\u2019 positions, also defines the limits of safe and danger zones. These features notably reduce the deployment time of the proposed safety system. Moreover, measurements show that all the proposed simplifications are obtained with an accuracy of 97%.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s24082391","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,9]],"date-time":"2024-04-09T08:55:12Z","timestamp":1712652912000},"page":"2391","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Untethered Ultra-Wideband-Based Real-Time Locating System for Road-Worker Safety"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"24","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3566-4707","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Aitor","family":"Ochoa-de-Eribe-Landaberea","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"CEIT-Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Manuel Lardizabal 15, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain"},{"name":"Tecnun School of Engineering, Universidad de Navarra, Manuel Lardizabal 13, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7754-6456","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Leticia","family":"Zamora-Cadenas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CEIT-Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Manuel Lardizabal 15, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain"},{"name":"Tecnun School of Engineering, Universidad de Navarra, Manuel Lardizabal 13, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0012-5527","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Igone","family":"Velez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CEIT-Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Manuel Lardizabal 15, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain"},{"name":"Tecnun School of Engineering, Universidad de Navarra, Manuel Lardizabal 13, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Eurostat (2024, January 08). 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