Date of Award

8-2025

Degree Name

MS in Biomedical Engineering

Department/Program

Biomedical Engineering

College

College of Engineering

Advisor

Britta Berg-Johansen

Advisor Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor College

College of Engineering

Abstract

Physically demanding professions, such as agriculture, put people at an increased

risk for experiencing back pain. This is due to the awkward and harmful postures sustained

throughout their workday. While studies have been done demonstrating that back pain is

prevalent amongst this community, most do not collect motion capture (MoCap) data,

leaving the specifics of the kinematics, such as the amount of time spent in harmful

postures, unknown. Unfortunately, MoCap data is typically limited to that of a lab or

facility where the cameras are housed. Therefore, this study aimed to mitigate the

inaccessibility of traditional MoCap by validating that inertial measurement units (IMUs)

can be used as a mobile alternative. This was done by recruiting 30 Cal Poly, San Luis

Obispo students, faculty, and staff to mimic movements typically performed in farm work

whilst wearing MoCap markers and two inertial measurement unit sensors. Results of this

study showed that there were statistically significant differences between MoCap and the

IMUs for most metrics assessed, likely due to MoCap marker occlusion causing

measurement inaccuracies, but that the IMUs serve as a reasonable alternative. These

results, in addition to occupational health survey data from farm working women, were

used to outline a future study where IMUs will be placed on farm workers to wear during

their workday, after which their data will be analyzed to assess extent of harmful postures

and correlations with relevant survey-reported measures.

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