Validation of an ergonomic assessment method using Kinect data in real workplace conditions

Pierre Plantard, Hubert P. H. Shum, Anne-Sophie Le Pierres, Franck Multon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

172 Citations (Scopus)
95 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Evaluating potential musculoskeletal disorders risks in real workstations is challenging as the environment is cluttered, which makes it difficult to accurately assess workers' postures. Being marker-free and calibration-free, Microsoft Kinect is a promising device although it may be sensitive to occlusions. We propose and evaluate a RULA ergonomic assessment in real work conditions using recently published occlusion-resistant Kinect skeleton data correction. First, we compared postures estimated with this method to ground-truth data, in standardized laboratory conditions. Second, we compared RULA scores to those provided by two professional experts, in a non-laboratory cluttered workplace condition. The results show that the corrected Kinect data can provide more accurate RULA grand scores, even under sub-optimal conditions induced by the workplace environment. This study opens new perspectives in musculoskeletal risk assessment as it provides the ergonomists with 30 Hz continuous information that could be analyzed offline and in a real-time framework.
Original languageEnglish
JournalApplied Ergonomics
Early online date4 Nov 2016
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 4 Nov 2016

Keywords

  • Kinect
  • RULA
  • Real work condition

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