Evaluation of physical effort by IoT-based wearable sensors

Assessment of physical effort commonly addressed in research through acceleration signals can show significant measurement errors. The approach presented in this paper formulates a proper measurement system to evaluate the physical effort by wearable devices. Specifically, the paper proposes the joint use of sensors for skin conductance (SC) and electromyography (EMG). The EMG sensor is introduced uniquely with the aim of properly identifying the effort level. The classification is, instead, entirely entrusted to the SC signal alone. The proposed approach is then tested in the evaluation of muscular fatigue felt by arms. The experimental results show good performance, as the obtained values in terms of classification accuracy and sensitivity are, respectively, 84.68 % and 89.75 %.