Ergonomics Healthy working in the office and home office

Lack of movement and poor posture—those who sit a lot at a desk or screen workplace often suffer from back, head, neck, and shoulder pain. This is where "MoKiBo-22" comes in: the project aims to develop a mobile solution for posture analysis to enable healthy working in the office and home office.

"MoKiBo-22" stands for mobile AI-supported body-tracking algorithms that consider 22 rated key points of the upper body. For capturing body points, both conventional 2D cameras and 3D depth sensors from smartphones are used. The system is designed to differentiate between active and passive sitting phases.

App should give users tips

The tool evaluates the data in compliance with GDPR using algorithms based on artificial intelligence (AI). They are combined into an "Active Sitting Score," which provides users with objective feedback on their sitting posture, thereby enhancing sitting habits. For instance, the app can send a message to users prompting them to change an ergonomically unfavorable sitting posture. The app also encourages movement, suggests exercises for active breaks, and offers ergonomic tips on posture. Additionally, a long-term analysis with a visualization of sitting behavior is available.

The goal of the project is to raise awareness of ergonomic behavior and support health-promoting sitting.

Dr. Bettina Wollesen

"The aim of the project is to increase awareness of ergonomic behavior and support health-promoting sitting to reduce long-term complaints due to physical inactivity," explains Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bettina Wollesen, head of the department at the Institute of Movement Therapy and Movement-Oriented Prevention and Rehabilitation at the Sports University. And project collaborator Dr. Giordano Scinicarelli adds: "MoKiBo-22 is intended to contribute to health promotion in the workplace context. With the help of the app, users should be able to access a secure and user-friendly technology both in the office and home office."

The German Sport University Cologne is responsible for the scientific validation of the camera-based posture analysis in the project. Additionally, the team is developing the "Active Sitting Score." In collaboration with Ergofox GmbH, the research team will conduct laboratory and field studies on the accuracy and reliability of the systems, develop the posture report, and evaluate usability (user-friendliness).

Usable with conventional smartphones

The consortium coordinator of the research project is Ergofox GmbH from Hamburg, a company founded in 2020 specializing in the development of digital health applications for businesses, health insurance companies, and individuals. Ergofox already has a digital posture analysis called Ergoscreening in its product portfolio, which, however, requires special hardware. The goal of the current project is to develop and evaluate new algorithms that can be used independently of hardware with conventional smartphones.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funds the project under the funding program "START-interactiv: Interactive Technologies for Health and Quality of Life." The funding amounts to $619,45 for two years, with 90 percent coming from the BMBF.