Quantification of muscles activations and joints range of motions during oil palm fresh fruit bunch harvesting and loose fruit collection

Abstract

Although global demand for palm oil has been increasing, most activities in the oil palm plantations still rely heavily on manual labour, which includes fresh fruit bunch (FFB) harvesting and loose fruit (LF) collection. As a result, harvesters and/or collectors face ergonomic risks resulting in musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) due to awkward, extreme and repetitive posture during their daily work routines. Traditionally, indirect approaches were adopted to assess these risks using a survey or manual visual observations. In this study, a direct measurement approach was performed using Inertial Measurement Units, and surface Electromyography sensors. The instruments were attached to different body parts of the plantation workers to quantify their muscle activities and assess the ergonomics risks during FFB harvesting and LF collection. The results revealed that the workers generally displayed poor and discomfort posture in both activities. Biceps, multifidus and longissimus muscles were found to be heavily used during FFB harvesting. Longissimus, iliocostalis, and multifidus muscles were the most used muscles during LF collection. These findings can be beneficial in the design of various assistive tools which could improve workers' posture, reduce the risk of injury and MSD, and potentially improve their overall productivity and quality of life.

Musculoskeletal modelling and simulation of oil palm fresh fruit bunch harvesting

“…The muscle activations were validated with sEMG, which is the standard used in human motion analysis 30 , 45 . Other validation methods such as comparison with similar studies are impossible because very limited studies investigated the muscle behavior of FFB harvesters with EMG 11 . From Table 6 , the normalized activations of the back muscles (longissimus and multifidus) showed a high correlation in R MA and a good correlation in MAE MA when F RA were 30 N and 50 N. These findings concur with previous studies in lifting tasks 18 , 46 and daily living activities 46 , which obtained high similarity results for the back muscles between the OpenSim muscle activations and EMG.…”

“…The harvesters must exert alarge force at a very high speed to harvest the fruit 48 . Since the biceps is the primary muscle to perform this motion 11 , 49 , it is reasonable that the biceps showed higher MAE MA values when compared to other muscles. Secondly, Roberto Bortoletto et al .…”

“…Despite the increasing global demand of palm oil, most plantation activities are performed manually by workers, including the Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) harvesting. During FFB harvesting, the harvesters need to visually identify and harvest the ripe FFB with a large force repeatedly in an awkward posture 11 , exposing them to a higher risk of Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) 12 – 16 . Qualitative approaches such as questionnaires 12 , 13 , interviews 12 , 14 , Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) 15 and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) 16 were employed to investigate this activity.…”

“…Qualitative approaches such as questionnaires 12 , 13 , interviews 12 , 14 , Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) 15 and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) 16 were employed to investigate this activity. A recent study reported in 11 quantitatively examine the FFB harvesting using IMU and EMG. Although the existing studies sufficiently pointed out that the harvesters are facing MSD risk, most biomechanical parameters of the harvesters remain unclear.…”

Simulation of Lower Limb Muscle Moment and Total Muscle Fiber Force Using OpenSim for Knee Osteoarthritis

“…One of such is the computational modeling and simulation of the human neuromusculoskeletal system, which provides modeling and simulation of the human body's internal muscles and the forces acting on them either from the joint loads or reaction forces from the ground. The fact that the internal forces cannot be measured or simulated, makes such software very important to understand the safe range of motion that will not cause any injuries to the performer and the muscle activation while performing daily living activities (Teo, 2021). Not only that but also guiding companies and healthcare providers, who provide rehabilitation treatments and assistive devices (Hicks et al, 2015).…”