Sensor-Based and AI-Driven Ergonomic Seated Posture Detection for Workplace Risk Prevention

Background: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) remain one of the most prevalent occupational health problems worldwide. To prevent the development of these WMSDs in an office space, a chair designed for office monitoring capable of accurately identifying ten representative seated postures and measuring environmental factors was developed and validated. Methods: To evaluate office working conditions, the chair has three embedded Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs): one directed towards seat pressure management, one directed towards environmental measurements and one PCB to manage the entire system. Machine learning approaches were then applied to establish a model that effectively predicts the seated position. The environmental data were also analyzed. Results: The seated position classification presented an accuracy of 80.99% in controlled conditions, while in a real-world context the accuracy was 65.98%. The environmental management showed low errors, except for the PM2.5 and PM10, with relative errors above 30%. Conclusions: This work presents an initial promising first step for an ergonomic office management solution.