A new method is described for automatically quantifying repetitive hand motion using digital video processing. The hand activity level (HAL) is widely used for evaluating repetitive hand work. Conventional methods using either a trained observer on site, or manual off site video analysis, are often considered inaccurate, cumbersome or impractical for routine work assessment. A simple paced load transfer task was used to simulate a repetitive industrial activity. Twelve participants were videoed performing the task for varying HAL conditions. The automatically predicted HAL was compared to the ground truth HAL measured using manual frame-by-frame video analysis. Hand kinematics using the marker-less single-camera video tracking algorithm were compared against an infrared 3D motion tracking system. This paper demonstrates proof-of-concept for automatic video-based direct exposure assessment.
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