Analysis of ergonomic and unergonomic human lifting behaviors by using Inertial Measurement Units

• Main Authors: Kuschan Jan, Schmidt Henning, Krüger Jörg
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2017-03-01
• Series: Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering
• Subjects: action recognition; biosignals; ergonomics; feature engineering; inertial measurement unit
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/cdbme-2017-0002

This paper presents an analysis of two distinct human lifting movements regarding acceleration and angular velocity. For the first movement, the ergonomic one, the test persons produced the lifting power by squatting down, bending at the hips and knees only. Whereas performing the unergonomic one they bent forward lifting the box mainly with their backs. The measurements were taken by using a vest equipped with five Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) with 9 Dimensions of Freedom (DOF) each. In the following the IMU data captured for these two movements will be evaluated using statistics and visualized. It will also be discussed with respect to their suitability as features for further machine learning classifications. The reason for observing these movements is that occupational diseases of the musculoskeletal system lead to a reduction of the workers’ quality of life and extra costs for companies. Therefore, a vest, called CareJack, was designed to give the worker a real-time feedback about his ergonomic state while working. The CareJack is an approach to reduce the risk of spinal and back diseases. This paper will also present the idea behind it as well as its main components.