Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 4, 2026
Evaluation of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Wrist Wearables to Estimate Stress on Students
Published on: June 16, 2018
An evaluation of wearable sensors and their placements for analyzing construction worker's trunk posture in
Wonil Lee1, Edmund Seto2, Ken-Yu Lin3
1Department of Construction Management, College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Abstract:
This study investigates the effect of sensor placement on the analysis of trunk posture for construction activities using two off-the-shelf systems. Experiments were performed using a single-parameter monitoring wearable sensor (SPMWS), the ActiGraph GT9X Link, which was worn at six locations on the body, and a multi-parameter monitoring wearable sensor (MPMWS), the Zephyr BioHarness™3, which was worn at two body positions. One healthy male was recruited and conducted 10 experiment sessions to repeat measurements of trunk posture within our study. Measurements of upper-body thoracic bending posture during the lifting and lowering of raised deck materials in a laboratory setting were compared against video-captured observations of posture. The measurements from the two sensors were found to be in agreement during slow-motion symmetric bending activities with a target bending of ≤45°. However, for asymmetric bending tasks, when the SPMWS was placed on the chest, its readings were substantially different from those of the MPMWS worn on the chest or under the armpit.
