Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Errors in using two dimensional methods for ergonomic assessment of motion in three dimensional space

Conference ·
OSTI ID:273758
;  [1];  [2]
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
  2. Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport, LA (United States)

Wrist posture and rapid wrist movements are risk factors for work related musculoskeletal disorders. Measurement studies frequently involve optoelectronic methods in which markers are placed on the subject`s hand and wrist and the trajectories of the markers are tracked in three dimensional space. A goal of wrist posture measurements is to quantitatively establish wrist posture orientation. Accuracy and fidelity of the measurement data with respect to kinematic mechanisms are essential in wrist motion studies. Fidelity with the physical kinematic mechanism can be limited by the choice of kinematic modeling techniques and the representation of motion. Frequently, ergonomic studies involving wrist kinematics make use of two dimensional measurement and analysis techniques. Two dimensional measurement of human joint motion involves the analysis of three dimensional displacements in an obersver selected measurement plane. Accurate marker placement and alignment of joint motion plane with the observer plane are difficult. In nature, joint axes can exist at any orientation and location relative to an arbitrarily chosen global reference frame. An arbitrary axis is any axis that is not coincident with a reference coordinate. We calculate the errors that result from measuring joint motion about an arbitrary axis using two dimensional methods.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
273758
Report Number(s):
UCRL-JC--123650; CONF-9609116--1; ON: DE96009236
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English