Posture Risk Assessment in an Automotive Assembly Line Using Inertial Sensors

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are a highly prevalent work-related health problem. Biomechanical exposure to hazardous postures during work is a risk factor for the development of MSD. This study focused on developing an inertial sensor-based approach to evaluate posture in industrial contexts, particularly in automotive assembly lines. The analysis was divided into two stages: 1) a comparative study of joint angles calculated during movements of the upper body segments using the proposed motion tracking framework and the ones provided by a state-of-the-art inertial motion capture system and 2) a work-related posture risk evaluation of operators working in an automative assembly line. For the comparative study, we selected data collected in laboratory (N = 8 participants) and assembly line settings (N = 9 participants), while for the work-related posture risk evaluation, we only considered data acquired within the automotive assembly line. The results revealed that the proposed framework could be applied to track industrial tasks movements performed on the sagittal plane, and the posture evaluation uncovered posture risk differences among different operators that are not considered in traditional posture risk assessment instruments.