EAGER: Development of Model-Based Active Chair for Proactive Injury Prevention

概述：计算机和互联网的使用极大地改变了我们的生活方式，并使我们面临许多重大的职业健康危害，包括与长时间坐着有关的颈部和肩部疼痛以及腰痛。这些危害已成为美国和世界其他地区的重大公共卫生问题。尽管已经确定了许多与生活方式相关的危险因素，但缺乏有效的监测和管理来长期预防这些疾病的发生。该项目的目的是与Liberty Mutual安全研究所合作，开发第一款智能主动座椅，以防止伤害并提高办公室安全性。关键词：人体工程学，传感器融合，视觉跟踪，主动干预。智力优点：这项探索性研究的智力价值在于，我们的研究导致了一种基于多模态感知研究的积极预防不健康生活方式的新范式，技术.研究人员开发了一种新的方法来实时预测颈部、背部和肩部关节负荷和肌肉力量，并开发了一种个性化的实时干预系统，以自动重新配置工作站和椅子，从而降低损伤/疾病风险。更广泛的影响是，我们的项目实现了大幅减少办公室相关的健康障碍，如腰痛，促进办公室和家庭生活质量的提高。拟议的研究结果在一个独特的和多样化的一代本科生和研究生的研究人员能够解决这类新的多学科问题，并鼓励妇女和代表性不足的积极参与。

Overview: Computers and Internet use have dramatically transformed our life style and exposed us to many significant occupational health hazards including neck and shoulder pains and low back pain associated with long-time sitting. These hazards have become a significant public health problem both in the US and the rest of the world. Although many lifestyle-related risk factors have been identified, effective monitoring and management is lacking to prevent the occurrence of these diseases in long term. The aim of this project, in partnership with Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, is develop a first smart active chair to prevent injuries and improve office safety.Keywords: ergonomics, sensor fusion, visual tracking, proactive intervention.Intellectual Merit: The intellectual merit of this proposed exploratory research is that our research leads to a new paradigm of proactive preventing unhealthy lifestyle based on multimodal sensing research and technology. The investigators develop a novel method to predict neck, back and shoulder joint loading and muscle forces in real-time and to develop a personalized and real-time intervention system to automatically reconfigure the workstation and chair to reduce the injury/disorder risk.Broad Impacts: The broader Impact is that our project achieves substantial reduction in office-related health disorders, such as lower back pain, promoting improved lifestyle quality in the office and in our homes. The proposed research results in a unique and diverse generation of undergraduate and graduate researchers capable to address this new class of multidisciplinary problems and encourages active participation of women and underrepresented.