TOTEM PROJECT: TOTal Ergonomics Measurement

Project objectives

The objective of the TOTEM project is to develop a highly technological product to protect the
worker well-being and health and at the same time improve company productivity by reducing inefficiencies in the workplace (e.g. by monitoring the causes of the main occupational diseases or reporting false accidents). The TOTEM project aims to overcome the main limitations offered by
traditional ergonomic evaluation. To date, ergonomic evaluations involve few
temporal snapshots of the work gesture, monitoring singularly the joints involved without providing any objective kinematic data. Furthermore, the analysis is performed and standardized for the average worker. The TOTEM project instead aims to perform a continuous over time and total body analysis specific to the user. For each category of user, the TOTEM has in its memory a set of movements, exercises and lifts typical of that specific category of worker. In fact, workers can be workers, healthcare personnel responsible for handling patients (nurses, OSS), office employees, large-scale retail trade cashiers, logistics and warehouse workers. Following registration at the department TOTEM station, the worker will be able to select a 3D avatar based on his physical characteristics. Once the category to which they belong is specified, the worker will be able to observe the 3D avatar on the totem monitor showing the correct exercise to perform via a pre-recorded video. Subsequently, the worker wears the sensors and replicates the movement by viewing it on the monitor. For each type of exercise, the kinematic parameters of the critical and most stressed joint in that movement are shown in real-time. The reference values ​​of the correct movement are shown on the monitor in order to give the worker awareness of the degree of adequacy of the gesture and encourage him to improve by refining the movement with some corrections. For each exercise it is expected to have some control angles for correct execution and a range within which the subject must remain during the duration of the exercise. At the end of each exercise, the overall results are shown with graphs and tables. The parameters depend on the singoil exercises and, in addition to the main standardized ergonomic indicators, they can be kinematic (Range of motion of the reference angle), stability, symmetry of the gesture if foreseen, speed of execution, accuracy as a percentage of achievement of the objectives of the correct exercise .
The TOTEM allows the worker to self-correct during the exercise by learning to perform
each movement correctly and avoiding the compensations of other joints. The interface
software graphics represents an excellent biofeedback tool capable of guaranteeing a
effective, fast and engaging learning of the movement to be performed. Using inertial sensors, ergonomic assessments are carried out with extreme speed, simplicity and repeatability. The results of each exercise and assessment are automatically saved and made available both as digital reports and as exportable data for subsequent analysis.

Start and end date

Project Manager

Coordinating institution of the project

Other Institutions involved

• NCS
• Campus Biomedico University of Rome 

Funding source(s).

Economic value of the project

62.400 €