A Sensor-Based Method for Occupational Heat Stress Estimation

Occupational Heat Stress (OHS) happens when a worker is physically active in hot environments. OHS can produce a strain on the body which leads to discomfort and eventually to heat illness and even death. Related ISO standards contain methods to estimate OHS and to ensure the safety and health of workers, but, they are subjective, impersonal, performed a posteriori, and even invasive. We hypothesize that a real time automated method is more effective and objective estimating OHS if it fuses data from environmental sensors, unobtrusive physiological body sensors, and takes into account the user profile. We propose a personalized method based on ergonomic calculations to offer a solution. We found that our method allows estimating the personalized effort levels, energy expenditure and drudgery of work for each worker and enables to take informed decisions to control OHS. We think that ISO standards could consider technological advances to propose real-time personalized methods.