Predicting Workload during Physically Demanding Work Using Oxygen Uptake Data

Abstract

Oxygen uptake measurements during the performance of actual work activities are considered a good measure of the absolute physiologic workload experienced by a worker. Many work physiologists recommend expressing absolute workload as a percentage of maximum oxygen uptake, commonly known as relative workload, since it provides a subject-specific workload. Determining relative workload is arithmetically simple but requires an additional and separate step to determine maximum oxygen uptake through exact or prediction techniques. This paper presents a method for predicating relative workload from in-situ collected sub-maximal oxygen uptake data without the need to determine maximum oxygen uptake. The methodology, developed using twenty subjects and verified on five, was based on modeling the human cellular utilization system as a stochastic system. The standard error in predicting relative workload for the validation subjects was ±3.2%. These initial results are quite promising and establish a starting point for further investigations.