Wearable Device for Acquiring Biomechanical Variables Applied to the Analysis of Occupational Health Risks in Industrial Environments
摘要
The activities performed in an industrial environment are classified as high risk for causing occupational diseases because the activities performed demand high frequencies of execution of movements or require high physical efforts on the part of industrial operators. Currently, risk indexes are assessed only based on observation and questionnaires, which adds subjectivity and lack of reliability to the results. The present study proposes the development and evaluation of a wearable technological device to acquire in situ the biomechanical variables of an operator and that these data serve to determine occupational risk indexes in a more objective way. The hardware architecture of the wearable device implemented consists of four modules: signal acquisition, processing, storage, and data transmission. The eleven (11) monitored variables are six myoelectric signals in the forearm, biceps, and back, two back inclination angles, heart rate, skin electrical conductance signal, and body temperature. To evaluate the performance of the implemented device, the eleven monitored variables were acquired, registered, and visualized during the execution of three test exercises by three users of different physiological parameters, resulting in a set of 99 signals. It was observed congruence between the occurrence of peaks of the signals with the characteristics of the executed exercises, in addition, there is no loss of data between the stages of capture, transmission, recording, and visualization.