Effects of Task Type, Task Duration, and Age on Body Kinematics and Subjective Fatigue

Investigating the effects of workload on body kinematics is the first step to identify, monitor, and ultimately reduce the incidence of fatigue, a prevalent phenomenon in the workplace that leads to chronic disorders, loss of productivity, and absenteeism (Lu, Megahed, Sesek, & Cavuoto, 2017, In Press; Ricci, Chee, Lorandeau, & Berger, 2007). In fa- tigue monitoring, kinematic measures including acceleration, jerk, and body posture have been found to be informative (Lu et al., 2017, In Press; Maman, Yazdi, Cavuoto, & Megahed, 2017; Ricci et al., 2007); however, none of the previous studies have considered a comprehensive set of these kinematic metrics during simulated manufacturing tasks. This study assessed the effects of duration, ease of task, and age as three factors on different body kinematic metrics and subjective ratings as a substitute “ground truth” for fatigue development. This will serve to inform feature selection for modeling fatigue development over a broad range of industrial tasks. Ninete...