Creating a Worker-Individual Physical Ability Profile Using a Low-Cost Depth Camera

Abstract

Assembly workers suffer from long-term damage performing physically intensive tasks due to workstations that are not ergonomically designed for the individual’s needs. Current approaches towards ergonomic improvements of workstations only assess the workstations themselves without taking the individual worker and abilities into account. Therefore, physical limitations, such as age-related loss of range of motion, are not addressed. Work-induced long-term damages result in employee absences, especially of workers close to their pension. Regarding the demographic change, this issue will be even more prevalent in the future. The current approaches, like the functional capacity evaluation, allow movement analysis of individuals, but are too time-consuming to be performed on all workers of a production site. This paper presents a method to assess the individual ability of a worker using a low-cost depth camera with full body tracking to determine the angles between body segments. A set of ergonomic exercises is used to demonstrate relevant abilities for assembly and commissioning tasks. By capturing the motion sequence of these exercises, a physical ability profile can be created with little effort.