Is low-cost motion capture with artificial intelligence applicable for human working posture risk assessment during manual material handling? A pilot study

Work. 2023;74(1):283-293. doi: 10.3233/WOR-205204.

Abstract

Background: Assessing working posture risks is important for occupational safety and health. However, low-cost assessment techniques for human motion injuries in the logistics delivery industry have rarely been reported.

Objective: To propose a novel approach for posture risk assessment using low-cost motion capture with artificial intelligence.

Methods: A Kinect was adopted to obtain red-green-blue (RGB) and depth images of the subject with 24 postures, and the human joints were extracted using artificial intelligence. The images were registered to obtain the actual three-dimensional (3D) human joint angle.

Results: The root mean square error (RMSE) significantly decreased. Finally, two common methods for evaluating human working posture injuries-the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and Ovako Working Posture Analysis System-were investigated.

Conclusions: The outputs of the proposed method are consistent with those of the commercial ergonomic evaluation software.

Keywords: Ovako Working Posture Analysis System (OWAS); Posture risk assessment; Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA); artificial intelligence; low-cost motion capture.

MeSH terms

  • Artificial Intelligence*
  • Ergonomics / methods
  • Humans
  • Motion Capture
  • Occupational Diseases*
  • Pilot Projects
  • Posture
  • Risk Assessment / methods