Wearable Stretch Sensors for Human Movement Monitoring and Fall Detection in Ergonomics

Abstract

Wearable sensors are beneficial for continuous health monitoring, movement analysis, rehabilitation, evaluation of human performance, and for fall detection. Wearable stretch sensors are increasingly being used for human movement monitoring. Additionally, falls are one of the leading causes of both fatal and nonfatal injuries in the workplace. The use of wearable technology in the workplace could be a successful solution for human movement monitoring and fall detection, especially for high fall-risk occupations. This paper provides an in-depth review of different wearable stretch sensors and summarizes the need for wearable technology in the field of ergonomics and the current wearable devices used for fall detection. Additionally, the paper proposes the use of soft-robotic-stretch (SRS) sensors for human movement monitoring and fall detection. This paper also recapitulates the findings of a series of five published manuscripts from ongoing research that are published as Parts I to V of “Closing the Wearable Gap” journal articles that discuss the design and development of a foot and ankle wearable device using SRS sensors that can be used for fall detection. The use of SRS sensors in fall detection, its current limitations, and challenges for adoption in human factors and ergonomics are also discussed.

Wearable Devices for Ergonomics: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Other definitions underpin its ability to create interaction between users and the smart environment anytime and anywhere [ 9 ], and to measure information such as the users’ locations, environments, movements, and vital signs [ 10 ]. The capabilities of these devices to measure various physiological and kinematic parameters, assess human performance, monitor human movement, perform motion analysis in a real manufacturing scenario, and/or record user’s kinetics, kinematics, physical parameters and/or (psycho)physiological parameters are also emphasised by other authors in the literature (e.g., [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]).…”

“…Mardonova and Choi [ 3 ] review trends in wearable device technology, providing an overview of its prevalent and potential applications to the mining industry. Also recent studies give insights of the state of the art of wearable equipment: e.g., Chander et al [ 11 ] focus on wearable stretch/strain sensors technology for human movement monitoring and fall detection, Koutromanos and Kazakou [ 9 ] on the use of smart wearables in primary and secondary education, and their impact on learning and teaching, and Niknejad et al [ 15 ] on recent advances and future challenges of smart wearables. Also in the ergonomic field some reviews have been published, but considering only a limited scope of the wearable device use: Tsao et al [ 19 ] summarise the applications of wearable sensors for human work and status evaluation, whereas Lim and D’Souza [ 20 ] synthesise the literature on body-worn inertial sensing for assessing biomechanical exposures and musculoskeletal disorder risk resulting from physical work.…”

“…The adoption of wearable technology appears particularly interesting for ergonomic purposes because of the well-known properties of assisting the users anywhere [ 21 ], sensing, collecting, and uploading data in a 24 × 7 manner [ 18 ], and monitoring continuously human performance [ 11 ]. Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and it applies theory, principles, data, and methods to optimise human well-being and overall system performance [ 22 , 23 ].…”

Feasibility of Using Floor Vibration to Detect Human Falls

“…Another method of detecting falls in the elderly is through the use of wearable sensors. There are different approaches and different systems have different algorithms and therefore a different number of sensors can be used [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. The use of pairs of sensors such as a combined accelerometer and gyroscope [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ] or a combined accelerometer and barometer [ 30 , 31 ] constitute the two leading options in current research.…”

Wearable integrated piezoelectric film sensor with tensioning, bending, shearing and twisting detection functions for human motion recognition

“…sensors are required and pinpointed onto the desired positions, restricting the naturalness of movements [20][21][22][23][24][25] . Fundamentally, such inefficiency and impracticality are ascribed to the limitation of existing wearable sensors; gaining information on a sensor deformation from the sensor's electrical signal is a huge challenge.…”