Machine Learning for Detection and Risk Assessment of Lifting Action

Repetitive occupational lifting has been shown to create an increased risk for incidence of back pain. Ergonomic workstations that promote proper lifting technique can reduce risk, but it is difficult to assess the workstations without constant risk monitoring. Machine learning systems using inertial measurement unit (IMU) data have been successful in various human activity recognition (HAR) applications, but limited work has been done regarding tasks for which it is difficult to collect significant amounts of data, such as manual lifting tasks. In this article, we discuss why traditional methods of data expansion may fail to improve performance on IMU data, and we present a machine learning system capable of detecting lifting action for assessing the risk for back pain using a relatively small amount of data. The proposed models outperform baseline HAR models and function on raw time-series data with minimal preprocessing for efficient real-time application.