Method for Movement and Gesture Assessment (MMGA) in ergonomics

We present a technique for the ergonomic assessment of motor tasks and postures. It is based on movement analysis and it integrates the perceived discomfort scores for joints motions and the time involvement of the different body districts. It was tested on 8 subjects performing reaching movements. The experimental protocol was designed to have an a priori expected comfort ranking, namely, higher values in presence of more uncomfortable tasks. The validation of the Method for Movement and Gesture Assessment (MMGA) in the ergonomic evaluation of a reaching task gave promising results and showed the effectiveness of the index. Possible applications of the method might be the integration into CAD tools and human motion simulation to provide an early comparative evaluation of the ergonomics of the prototyping process and workplace redesign in industry.