In Sweden, physical strain injuries yield a cost of estimated 50 billion SEK annually. The injuries are due to poorly designed workplaces and workers adopting ergonomically incorrect techniques. The smart textile based systems developed in the project will enable large reduction of costs to the society by offering a means to assess work load and prevent injuries, hence enable a longer working life.
The systems will be used by train workers to adopt sustainable working techniques and to perform objective assessments of workplaces.
The project idea is to develop a system to measure, assess and visualize physical load and risks for musculoskeletal work injuries. The system is based on smart textiles as part of work clothes. Sensors and electronics are integrated in textile garments to measure parameters such as heart rate, muscle activity, postures, movements and forces exerted. Measurements are analyzed and risk estimated using company specific and scientific methods.
Publications and other results
Lind, C.M., Sandsjö, L., Mahdavian, N., Högberg, D., Hanson, L., Antonio Diaz Olivares, J., Yang, L., Forsman, M. (2018). Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Using Smart Workwear – The Smart Workwear Consortium. Submitted to IHSED2018, Reims, France, 25-27 Oct, 2018.
Mahdavian, N., Lind, C.M., Antonio Diaz Olivares, J., Iriondo Pascual, A., Högberg, D., Brolin, E., Yang, L., Forsman, M., Hanson, L. (2018). Effect of Giving Feedback on Postural Working Techniques. Proceedings of the16th International Conference on Manufacturing Research ICMR 2018, Skövde, Sweden, 11-13 Sept, 2018.
Eklund, J., Forsman, M. (2018). Smart work clothes give better health – through improved work technique, work organization and production technology: In Bagnara, Tartaglia, Albolino, Alexander and Fujita (Eds). Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018) Volume III: Musculoskeletal disorders. pp 515-519. Springer.
Iriondo Pascual, A., Högberg, D., Kolbeinsson, A., Ruiz Castro, P., Mahdavian, N., Hanson, L. (2018). Proposal of an Intuitive Interface Structure for Ergonomics Evaluation Software. Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018), Volume VIII: Ergonomics and Human Factors in Manufacturing, Bagnara, S., Tartaglia, R., Albolino. S., Alexander, T., Fujita, Y. (Eds.), pp. 289-300, ISBN 978-3-319-96067-8 (print), 978-3-319-96068-5 (online), DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96068-5.