¹Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance, Sankt Augustin, Germany
²Trier University, Trier, Germany

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Introduction: The advent of digital technologies has profoundly impacted the realm of workplace design, facilitating the early identification of ergonomic risks prior to the establishment of physical workstations. Virtual reality (VR) environments hold considerable potential in this regard. However, the extent to which movement patterns in VR match those observed in real environments remains uncertain. This is of particular concern when ergonomic assessments depend on motion capture data as an input for biomechanical evaluation methods.

Methods: To investigate this, a within-subject laboratory study was conducted. Physically active male participants performed work tasks under two conditions: a real environment and a fully virtual environment. Full-body kinematic data were captured using an inertial motion capture system. The subsequent analysis focused on joint angles that are relevant to ergonomic assessments, including back and shoulder. To assess the ergonomic relevance of the findings, established biomechanical evaluation procedures, including the Kinematic Assessment Index (KAiX), were employed to analyze the joint angle data.

Results: Preliminary statistical analyses indicate systematic deviations in joint angles between the virtual and real environments. The most pronounced differences occurred in tasks involving dynamic trunk movement, with peak deviations in trunk inclination reaching up to 14°. Similarly, the knee showed task-dependent discrepancies of up to 11°. These deviations suggest that tasks characterized by variability in movement execution are particularly susceptible to environment-related variability. In contrast, movements in the shoulder region exhibited comparatively stable distributions across both environments, with deviations typically remaining below 4°. Despite the statistical significance of many findings, most observed differences remained within a range of ±10°, which may be tolerable depending on the assessment objective.

Discussion: The observed differences suggest that motion in VR cannot yet be considered equivalent to real-world execution for all task types. These discrepancies have the potential to result in divergent outcomes in ergonomic risk classification when employing standard assessment tools. This underscores the necessity for a judicious and context-aware interpretation of VR-based assessments, particularly in contexts involving preventive or regulatory applications within the domain of occupational ergonomics.

Conclusion: Nonetheless, VR demonstrates considerable promise in supporting ergonomic workplace design. Nevertheless, for the purpose of VR-based ergonomic risk assessment, there is a necessity for systematic validation of the comparability of movement data between virtual and real environments. Future endeavors should prioritize the delineation of acceptable deviation limits and the enhancement of VR setup fidelity for high-risk or complex tasks.