Advanced visualization of ergonomic assessment data through industrial Augmented Reality
Alessandro Evangelista, Vito Modesto Manghisi, Sara Romano, Vito De Giglio, Lorenzo Cipriani, Antonio Emmanuele Uva
Abstract
The industrial transition to the 4.0 paradigm defines new scenarios in which the operator plays a central role within the industrial ecosystem. Thanks to the enabling technologies of Industry 4.0, it is possible to effectively improve operators' working conditions by applying the Human-Centered approach. Nowadays, one of the main challenges is to reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders resulting from ergonomically incorrect working conditions in order to prevent the occurrence of occupational diseases. To this end, we developed a software tool that leverages a low-cost D-RGB camera (Kinect v2) to track the human body and an Augmented Reality (AR) visualization system based on Microsoft HoloLens 2. The tool assesses postural ergonomic risk in real-time according to the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) metric. The proposed AR application allows a three-dimensional visualization of postures, which can be observed directly superimposed on the operator's body in the real scene. This approach aims to optimize the understanding of postures by creating a link between real information (operator's body) and virtual information (virtual skeleton, RULA score, and angles) by providing a simple and immediate user interface for ergonomists.