Smart Office Chair for Working Conditions Optimization

There is a growing tendency for people to spend more and more hours of their day sitting. This position leads to an increase in the postural problems in the population. For workers who have to spend long hours at work, in a seated position, investment should be directed towards the development of equipment that improves their working conditions, such as smart instrumented chairs with warnings of changes in position. With this work we propose a standard office chair instrumentation approach, designed to allow monitoring physiological parameters such as: posture of the seated person (user); body temperature; and respiratory frequency. The system also allows monitoring environmental parameters such as: temperature; relative humidity; atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2); noise; and light levels. The chair enables the interaction with control equipment to adjust the comfort level, advising the need for rest time, repositioning notifications, and the real time visualization of data, using applications for Windows and Android. The system was tested by six users and evaluated in the detection of six different postures for each user, while sitting on the chair, presenting an 100% accuracy on the posture detection and a maximum of 18% error on the physiological parameters sensing. Experimental results show the adequate functionality of the instrumented chair, which could contribute to the prevention of pathologies associated with improper posture and the improvement of work productivity.

Automated summary

There is a growing trend of people spending more time sitting, leading to an increasing number of postural problems. To improve working conditions for workers who spend long hours seated, smart instrumented chairs with warnings of changes in position should be developed. This study proposes a standard office chair instrumentation approach, capable of monitoring physiological parameters such as posture, body temperature, and respiratory frequency, as well as environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide levels, noise, and light. The instrumented chair showed 100% accuracy in postural detection and up to 18% error in physiological parameters sensing, making it a potential solution for preventing posture-related pathologies and enhancing work productivity.