It has been pointed out that the act of carrying a heavy object that exceeds a certain weight by a worker at a construction site is a major factor that puts physical burden on the worker’s musculoskeletal system. However, due to the nature of the construction site, where there are a large number of workers simultaneously working in an irregular space, it is difficult to figure out the weight of the object carried by the worker in real time or keep track of the worker who carries the excess weight. This paper proposes a prototype system to track the weight of heavy objects carried by construction workers by developing smart safety shoes with FSR (Force Sensitive Resistor) sensors. The system consists of smart safety shoes with sensors attached, a mobile device for collecting initial sensing data, and a web-based server computer for storing, preprocessing and analyzing such data. The effectiveness and accuracy of the weight tracking system was verified through the experiments where a weight was lifted by each experimenter from +0 kg to +20 kg in 5 kg increments. The results of the experiment were analyzed by a newly developed machine learning based model, which adopts effective classification algorithms such as decision tree, random forest, gradient boosting algorithm (GBM), and light GBM. The average accuracy classifying the weight by each classification algorithm showed similar, but high accuracy in the following order: random forest (90.9%), light GBM (90.5%), decision tree (90.3%), and GBM (89%). Overall, the proposed weight tracking system has a significant 90.2% average accuracy in classifying how much weight each experimenter carries.
Human Factors Modelling Approach: Application to a Safety Device Supporting Crane Operations in Major Hazard Industries
