Abstract
Due to the declining population and the aging of the farmer population in the hilly and mountainous areas of Japan, it is necessary for the elderly to carry out the mowing work on the ridges and slopes, which is traditionally regarded as heavy labor as part of paddy farming. One of the most important causes of these accidents is an incorrect mowing posture; therefore, it is important and necessary to identify effective and safe working patterns during inclined plane mowing. In this paper, we designed and implemented a set of mowing experiments in a terraced field area in Hiroshima to collect information on the body motion of experienced elderly mowing workers via a high-precision motion capture device that supports the collection of information from 23 joints. According to an analysis that calculated the angles of the workers’ joints during mowing, we confirmed the characteristics of the mowing workers’ working patterns in three different situations (typical inclined plane mowing (TI), top-down mowing (TD) and bottom-up mowing (BU)). The comparative analysis indicates that the basic actions “c” (cutting) and “t” (throwing) are basically the same in terms of body posture for the situation TI, but for situation TD, the difference was observed with respect to the workers’ right ankle. Moreover, based on the comparation analysis for mowing action “c” (cutting), we confirmed that mowing workers should: keep their lower bodies as still as possible to keep balance for ensuring safety while working on inclined plane (TI); keep careful even if they are working on the flat ground (TD); and do not exert their utmost strength to mow, unless they are standing on the flat ground (BU). The findings of this work should be emphasized in the future development of mowing support systems and training programs for new mowing workers.
Highlights
In recent years, with the development of robot and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies, many studies have focused on systems such as automatic mowing machines [1]
Different from the other two situations, the results show that situation bottom-up mowing (BU) produced the largest value of Stdwaist, which may indicate that the workers exerted their utmost strength to mow in this situation
Based on the design and implementation of a set of mowing experiments, we collected a total of 32,700 items of motion data from elderly experienced mowing workers to calculate the angles of the workers’ joints and the inclined plane for analysis via the high-precision motion capture device Xsens MVN Animate Pro
Summary
With the development of robot and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies, many studies have focused on systems such as automatic mowing machines [1]. The complex terrain of the hilly and mountainous areas in Japan requires that mowing work be done by manually operated machines [2]. The manually driven U-handle-type mowing machine is the most common device used to clear weeds on inclined planes. Incorrect postures cause a heavy burden on a worker’s waist, shoulders, and hips, sometimes leading to falls or slips [6]. For elderly people, such accidents may result in death [6]. Studies on workers’ dangerous postures and effective and safe working patterns during inclined plane mowing are important and necessary
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