Preliminary investigation of a wearable device for evaluating muscular effort and fatigue at workplace

Controls and prevention activities for musculoskeletal disorders are increasingly encouraged in the industrial context. Several ergonomic assessment techniques exist. However, they primarily focus on the biomechanical and postural load requirements of job tasks and rely on self-report and observational methods rather than direct measurements, which are often too intrusive. This study investigates whether a commercially available low-intrusive and low-cost wearable sensor can be utilised to assess muscular effort and fatigue, thereby improving decision-making in work and workstation design. For this purpose, the potential of the Myo™ armband has been explored. The electrical activity of the upper limbs (arm and forearm) was evaluated through 15 physically tasks (manual handling and assembly) conducted in laboratory conditions. Satisfactory results were obtained from the correlation and significance analysis, considering the EMG signal, the Borg scale, and the activity level (e.g., load, distance, n° of repetitions). Further experimentation was conducted to validate the proposed approach in a real production facility