Construction Equipment Operator Physiological Data Assessment and Tracking

Abstract

The construction industry experiences a disproportionately high number of injuries and fatalities among the total U.S. employed workforce. Although correlations have been identified between physiological information, worker fatigue, and safety, minimal research efforts have collected and analyzed construction-worker physiological metrics. The objective of this case study was to quantify and analyze physiological data of two individual construction-equipment operators over a consecutive 5-day duration. Physiological metrics, including human heart rate, breathing rate, upper body posture angle, traveling speed, and acceleration, were automatically collected and assessed. Experimental trials were also conducted to validate measurement data collected by the physiological status monitoring system. The main contributions of this case study were found in the framework for assessing physiological properties of construction-equipment operators and scientifically collected and analyzed physiological data.