Upright Sitting Posture Detector based on Inertial Measurement Unit for Prolonged Desk Workers

Sitting for a long time in an improper posture may raise the risk of increasing spinal pain. Many factors are involved in creating lower back pain in people. One such main reason is the sedentary work style. Sitting upright is a good posture to reduce back-related pain. Several monitoring techniques are available to address the bad sitting posture problem. The proposed system is designed to monitor the posture of the person, and when it detects bad posture, it gives an alert message on the mobile. The system consists of an ESP 32 board, an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensor, an ultrasonic sensor, a T-shirt, and an Android mobile. The IMU was placed on the back side of the T-shirt based on the spinal cord's anatomical location. The bending angle will be assessed by the IMU sensor. The distance from the backrest of the chair is detected by an ultrasonic sensor. Based on the output from the IMU sensor and ultrasonic sensor, ESP 32 will process the data, send it over Bluetooth, and share it with a mobile app for continuous monitoring. The proposed method can help computer users and sedentary professionals actively achieve a straight sitting position for extended periods of desk work.