Ergonomic Risk Assessment in Construction: Integrating Vision-based Postural Assessment and EMG-based Fatigue Analysis

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are prevalent among construction workers, negatively impacting their occupational health, safety, and working performance. Though various ergonomic risk assessment methods have been developed, limited of them have integrated different indicators to provide a more comprehensive assessment scheme based on diverse data sources. Thus, this study proposes a framework that considers both postural and physiological perspectives to narrow this research gap. It integrates the computer vision-based postural assessment and the cumulative muscle fatigue analysis using electromyography (EMG) sensors. Then, the fused results can be obtained through a knowledge-based risk matrix. The proposed method has been applied in a realistic case study to demonstrate its effectiveness and feasibility. This study contributes to enriching the ergonomic risk assessment methods based on data fusion and the adoption of different digital technologies. It has the potential to facilitate effective ergonomic risk management, thereby promoting OHS in the construction industry.