Assessment of Construction Workers’ Labor Intensity

Based on Wearable Smartphone System

Zhen Yang 1; Yongbo Yuan 2; Mingyuan Zhang 3; Xuefeng Zhao 4; and Boquan Tian 5
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Abstract: Construction jobs are more labor intensive than other industrial jobs. Safety problems caused by overworked bodies are common,
and the supervision of construction workers is always flawed. In China, piecework has long been the common way to evaluate workers’
workloads, because it is always inconvenient to obtain direct indicators. To improve this situation, this paper proposes a method based on
smartphone sensor acquisition and the concept of labor intensity to evaluate construction workers’ workloads. A sensor application based on
the smartphone platform was created to effectively measure labor intensity so that the application could track construction workers’ move-
ment data in an unobtrusive way. Moreover, preprocessing and a machine learning algorithm were used to classify 25 groups of experimental
data. Then, the accuracy of the method was tested. It was shown that not only did the application meet the portability requirement, but its
output also satisfied the accuracy requirement for supervising construction workers’ activity. The research presented in this paper can help
construction organizations promote the intelligent management level of monitoring workers’ activity in real time and evaluating the workers’
whole-day workload. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001666. © 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Construction safety; Labor intensity; Smartphone sensors; Machine learning; Construction management.

Introduction on the whole building life cycle of a building project. Furthermore,

The construction industry, a pillar industry in China, reached the
total output of 4,952.22 billion CNY in 2017 and plays a vital role
in the economy (Bureau 2016; Chodakowska and Nazarko 2017).
Nevertheless, the construction site is one of the most dangerous
workplaces because of its complex conditions and highly labor-
intensive nature (Lee et al. 2017; Teo and Ling 2005; Tixier
et al. 2016). Increasing numbers of real estate projects are under
construction in China, and these projects are usually time-tight
and duty-heavy (Chiu and Lai 2017). Long-term overwork is physi-
cally and mentally exhausting for the workers and even causes
disease (Yan et al. 2017). Recently, the ministry published the
Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries data, which showed that
692 construction-related fatalities occurred and 807 construction
workers died in China during 2017. In 2016, the number of fatal-
ities and death increased by 58 and 72, respectively. To solve this
problem, more advanced management methods should be applied
on construction sites.
As mentioned, construction sites face severe security issues.
To strengthen management, building information modeling (BIM)
technology establishes a building model by integrating information
1 and timely analysis and tracking of workforce activities are essen-
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Construction Management, Dalian Univ. of
Technology, Dalian 116024, China. Email: yangz@mail.dlut.edu.cn
2
Professor, Dept. of Construction Management, Dalian Univ. of
Technology, Dalian 116024, China. Email: yongbo@dlut.edu.cn
3 safety management has consisted of photo-based recognition and
Associate Professor, Dept. of Construction Management, Dalian Univ.
of Technology, Dalian 116024, China (corresponding author). Email:
myzhang@dlut.edu.cn
4
Professor, School of Civil Engineering, Dalian Univ. of Technology,
Dalian 116024, China. Email: zhaoxf@dlut.edu.cn
5
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Construction Management, Dalian Univ. of
Technology, Dalian 116024, China. Email: tian_boquan@mail.dlut.edu.cn
Note. This manuscript was submitted on June 1, 2018; approved on
December 3, 2018; published online on April 30, 2019. Discussion period
open until September 30, 2019; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9364.
Goedert extended BIM into the construction process by docu-
menting three-dimensional (3D) as-builts, producing a four-
dimensional (4D) as-constructed model, and capturing and storing
construction documents (Goedert and Meadati 2008). Later, Bilal
effectively saved project costs by managing building auxiliary ma-
terials with BIM (Park et al. 2014). In another study Muhammad
even considered that BIM had pushed the construction industry into
the big-data era (Bilal et al. 2016). Although the degree of digiti-
zation of structural subjects, construction materials, and machinery
has advanced by leaps and bounds, BIM technology neglects to
manage construction workers’ daily data. Two main reasons for this
dilemma are the difficulty of extracting workers’ data and the lack
of suitable evaluation indicators (Hopkins 2009; Øien et al. 2011).
Therefore, the object of this paper is to use the smartphone as a data
collection device for evaluating workers’ labor intensity.
Literature Review: Worker Data Collection Method
on Construction Sites
The transformation of traditional construction sites into construc-
tion sites of intelligentization is a current trend, because effective
tial contributions to the improvement of productivity and safety
on construction sites (e.g., Aguilar and Hewage 2013; Teizer
et al. 2010). Until now, the technology applied to construction
sensor-based identification. Along with these intelligence technol-
ogies, an interactive management platform can be built for guaran-
teeing construction safety.
The original image recognition algorithm used CNN (convolu-
tional neural networks) to identify objects in the camera. That is
to say, it could remotely achieve the contours of personnel extrac-
tion and posture identification to facilitate improved safety inspec-
tion and supervision (Karpathy and Li 2017; Konstantinou and
Brilakis 2018). With this method, Heng Li et al. established
a worker safety helmet recognition model. By training 100,000

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J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2019, 145(7): 04019039

 images in various environments, the high-precision recognition
model could help protect construction workers from accidents
(Fang et al. 2018a). Further, Weili Fang et al. extended the image
recognition method to calculate the distance between workers and
large equipment on the basis of the site’s camera, which helped
reduce the safety hazards caused by blind spots in the driver’s
vision (Fang et al. 2018c). With the gradual maturity of image rec-
ognition technology, scholars paid attention to image-based seman-
tic recognition technology. Semantic recognition focuses on the
selection or development of specific algorithms to identify, read,
and understand photo information (Karpathy and Li 2017) and
automatically assess the construction situation. Qi Fang et al. used
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the neural network algorithm to calculate the identification box of
workers and windows in video (Fang et al. 2018b). Then, they gen-
erated a semantic identification of whether the worker had a risk of
falling according to the relative position of the recognition frame. In
order to improve the identification accuracy, Lieyun Ding et al.
developed a hybrid model CNN+LSTM (long short-term memory)
to recognize workers’ unsafe actions (Ding et al. 2018). Also for
worker safety monitoring, Jose Antonio Diego-Mas built the ergo-
nomic assessment system, which used a Kinect camera to detect the
position of the joints and then assess postural loads (Diego-Mas and
Alcaide-Marzal 2014). However, the role of most construction site
cameras was limited to ordinary image transmission because such
information processing algorithms were quite highly complex and
the implementation of some key functions depended on a huge
amount of computation. At the same time, the perception of behav-
ior using the camera was limited. The occlusion problem, the
lighting conditions, the installation location and angle, and many
other factors (Poppe 2010) imposed a great number of constraints
in the application of video recognition technology on the construc-
tion site.
Because sensor technology could solve the camera occlusion
problem, many scholars investigated wearable devices to solve data
extraction problems (Foerster et al. 1999). KangHY used wearable
devices to measure workers’ unsafe behavior (Yang et al. 2016).
Martin and Voix (2018) examined the integration of a noninvasive
vital sign–monitoring feature into the workers’ hearing protection
devices (HPDs) by using a microphone. In recent years, the smart-
phone has become an indispensable tool in daily life, as the price
has decreased and the sales volume has increased. Third-party data
service provider TalkingData released (TalkingData 2017). The
spokesperson Yotaro Noguchi reported that in December 2017, the
number of the world‘s smartphones exceeded 1.46 billion. At
present, the functions of mobile phones are not restricted to making
calls. In addition, smartphones can deal with computing, storage,
and other functions. Indeed, the smartphone can be used as a small
computer (Dominicis et al. 2013). For instance, the A10+M10
processor is built into the Apple iPhone 7 (Cupertino, California).
The processor continuously measures data from accelerometers and
gyroscopes, and the measured data can be easily transmitted
through a 4G network. In addition, using smartphone as a collec-
tion device will not bring the construction staff the burden of any
extra action. Actually, it has already been used for collecting
workers’ messages (Guo and Ding 2016). Depari et al. managed
workers’ localization awareness and task awareness on the basis
of the GPS installed in smartphones. Furthermore, Reza Akhavian
et al. used one smartphone on the upper arm to capture a few body
movements by collecting data using an embedded accelerometer
and gyroscope sensors (Akhavian and Behzadan 2016). More
recently, to improve the accuracy problem, Nipum D. Nath et al.
used the three-axis acceleration sensor fixed on the upper arm
and waist to measure the change of the trunk’s flexion in order to
judge construction workers’ construction actions (Nath et al. 2017).
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J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2019, 145(7): 04019039
Table 1. Physical labor intensity grading table
Value of I Intensity degree
<15 Light-intensity labor
15–20 Medium-intensity labor
20–25 High-intensity labor
>25 Very high-intensity labor
However, it was not practical because no worker would tie the
phone to the upper arm in actual work. Furthermore, this method
has an evident accuracy variance because of the complexity of
workers‘ behavior. Additional studies had similar problems. In or-
der to obtain a reasonable result, other studies either reduced pre-
dictive actions or lowered prediction accuracy. Above all, tying a
phone to the upper arm affects workers’ movement, and the accu-
racy of this method should be improved.
Classification of Intensity of Physical Work
As previously mentioned, construction site management lacks
suitable construction worker evaluation indicators (Seo et al. 2016).
Therefore, this paper brings in a Chinese national standard—
“Classification on Intensity of Physical Work” (SAC 2004), which
was established by the labor security of the People’s Republic of
China and drafted by the Chinese Academy of Medical Science. The
standard was based on extensive experiments by Yu Yongzhong
and Li Tianlin. Construction workers’ labor intensity refers to the
degree of labor stress, expressed as the amount of labor consumed
by workers in creating material products and services within a cer-
tain period of time. The standard determines the basis protection
work for the strength of physical labor and provides an assessment
basis for the quantification of heavy physical work.
By applying this standard, it is possible to identify the key types
of work or processes for workers’ physical labor intensity and
furthermore to reduce the physical labor intensity of workers and
increase labor productivity in a focused and planned manner. The
core of this standard is the calculation formula of labor intensity
index
I ¼ 3T þ 7M ð1Þ
where I is the intensity index of physical work, which can be used
to distinguish physical strength levels as shown in Table 1; T is the
working time rate (WTR), which is the ratio of the actual working
hours divided by the total working hours; and M is the average
daily energy metabolic rate, which is the ratio of the whole day
energy consumption divided by the total working hours. It can
be considered that the workers’ manual labor intensity is related
to working time and work consumption of energy. Until now,
although the provision has done a good job on work intensity clas-
sification, this method can be used only for sampling tests.
In general, the data collection process of this specification is
very complicated. The method of collecting the working time rate
must follow three principles. The first is to select two or three work-
ers for the measurement every day. The second is that statistical
work requires manually recording the time spent on all kinds of
labors and rest time (including midwork pauses) from the start
of work to the end of work. The last is that each subject should
be recorded continuously for 3 days. The method of collecting en-
ergy consumption is also very complex. First, workers on site are
allowed to wear carbon dioxide–collecting equipment, and then
the worker’s oxygen consumption is analyzed through the instru-
ment in the laboratory. Finally, the workers’ energy consumed is
04019039-2 J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
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Fig. 1. Construction worker activity recognition flow chart. (Image by Zhen Yang.)
calculated throughout the day. The complexity of the experimental
process limits the generalization of this specification. In order to
solve the popularization problem, this article re-creates this speci-
fication through a smartphone sensor. In addition, this collection
method of energy consumption is not only cheap and convenient
but also can manage the steel workers in real time.
Table 1 provides statistics by the laboratory technician through
extensive experiments. In the table every kind of work can be found
that corresponds to a certain level of energy consumption. Specifi-
cally, it is evident that manual work or mild activities of the
legs, such as typing, are light-intensity labor. Hand and arm con-
tinuous movements such as sawing wood and truck driving are
medium-intensity labor. Arm and torso load work such as porters
are high-intensity labor, and high-intensity excavation and handling
are very high-intensity labor.
Research Scope and Objectives
This paper presents two major problems in the supervision of
workers on construction sites. One problem is that workers’ data
are difficult to extract. The other one is that the indicators are dif-
ficult to quantify. In general, extracting workers’ behavioral data
require complex sensor equipment. Simultaneously, installation
and maintenance also take time and effort. To remedy this situation,
the presented study contributes to the construction site worker’
supervision through (1) the Orion cloud cell (Orion CC) installed
in the iPhone 7, which extracts characteristic acceleration data and
gyroscope data of the workers’ wrists and thighs; (2) the energy
consumed by these actions from the extracted data; and (3) an
experiment carried out as described in the section “Experiment”
to build and optimize workers’ action classification model as
showed in Fig. 1.
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Methodology
In this research, smartphone acceleration and gyroscope were used
to predict workers’ characteristic construction actions. These col-
lected data had three applications: first, the acceleration data were
used for calculating workers’ energy consumption by Freedson’s
empirical equation (Freedson et al. 1998); then, eight characteristic
dimensions were extracted from the original data; and last, the
workers’ acceleration data and gyroscope data were labeled with
the corresponding activity class. Since then, an improved support
vector machine (SVM) method was put forward to train a predictive
model. The prompt processing includes (1) an editing program
for finding and optimizing outliners to maximize the function mar-
gin; and (2) the improvment of model classification accuracy
through normalization and cross-validation. All training, testing,
and cross-validation program code of the classifiers were per-
formed in MATLAB 2016.
Data Preparation
The accelerometer is considered the best instrument to measure
carrier acceleration (John and Freedson 2012). As early as 1961,
Freedson used an accelerometer to monitor physical activity. To
verify the accuracy of the acceleration sensor embedded in a
smartphone, two contrast tests were specially designed by Zhang
et al. (2018). As Fig. 2 showed, they placed an an Apple iPhone 6
and a piezoelectric accelerometer concurrently on a shaking table
as a contrast; the collected data correlation coefficient of the axial
acceleration indicated that the smartphone acceleration sensor was
accurate and reliable.
Orion CC, shown in Fig. 3, was used to collect data in the con-
trast tests. The monitoring program was developed by the Structural
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
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Fig. 2. Accuracy of smartphone sensors comparison experiments.
Fig. 3. Orion CC interface.
Health Cloud Monitoring Research Group of Dalian University of
Technology (DLUT), China. It provided a measurement of linear
accelerations and angular rotation along three axes, six signals in
total, and all monitored workers’ construction activity values were
based on the Orion CC software in the later section.
Energy Metabolic Rate Statistical Approach
Energy consumption is an important parameter to measure con-
struction workers’ intensity strength. Among many ways to calcu-
late person energy consumption, the indirect method is the most
popular one. Specifically, oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide
production are measured by open circuit spirometry to calculate
METs (metabolic equivalent of energy). For the purpose of finding
out the relationship between acceleration and energy consumption,
Freedson et al. (2011) found 50 volunteers wearing sensor devices
and asked them to perform experiments on a treadmill. Finally,
two conclusions were drawn: that there is no relation between
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accelerometer counts and gender, and that accelerometer counts
and energy consumption have a linear relationship
METs ¼ 1.439008 þ 0.000795 × AC ð2Þ
where METs = important unit for evaluating heart and lung
function, representing the amount of energy consumed by a normal
person at rest, and 1 METs is equivalent to 250 ml=min of oxygen
consumption; and AC = accelerometer counts, used to express the
acceleration signals value summed by each vertical accelerometer
digitized signal over a specified interval.
Other scholars have repeated Freedson’s experiments and opti-
mized the parameters of this formula in a more rigorous experimen-
tal environment (Hall et al. 2013), but the formulas obtained are
basically the same. Zhang Mingyuan used this method to measure
building porters’ energy consumption (Mingyuan et al. 2017). In
fact, this method has achieved excellent application in counting
the physical consumption in the field of sports medicine.
Working Time Rate Calculation Method
For the purpose of counting WTR, it is necessary to record the
time of all work and rest (including midwork suspensions) per-
formed throughout the workday. This work can only be manually
recorded before. In this paper, smartphone sensors were innova-
tively used to recognize body movement, and each specific char-
acteristic action corresponded to a label. In the identification
procedure, the SVM method was used to classify the sample data.
The acquisition frequency was set to 10 Hz because this setting
guaranteed that each identified tag represented an action lasting
0.1 s. Therefore, the working time rate could be calculated
WTR ¼ 0.1 × AT ð3Þ
where AT = number of identifying tags.
Data Preprocessing
Practical applications require high classification accuracy. How-
ever, direct data training often leads to poor accuracy. Some
suitable preprocessing can effectively help the model find the
optimal solution during the iterative process. Thus, a multifeature
dimension and a normalization method were used to optimize the
original data.
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 Improved Supervised Learning Method
In the field of machine learning, SVM is a supervised learning
model commonly used for pattern recognition, data classification,
and regression analysis. It builds the optimal hyperplane in the
feature space on the basis of the structural risk minimization theory,
so that the learner obtains the global optimal solution (Chapelle
et al. 1999). Moreover, SVM is the most suitable method because
it can achieve better classification results for small samples and
high-dimensionality data types. In order to obtain better classifica-
tion accuracy with SVM, this paper introduces the penalty param-
eter and slack variable to optimize the location of hyperplane in the
code; then, the constraint condition becomes
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1 Xn
Lðw; b; x; a; gÞ ¼ max kwk2 þ C xi
2 i¼1
n X
n
− S ai ðyi ðwT x þ bÞ − 1 þ xi Þ − gi x i
i¼1
i¼1
where L = Lagrangian functions; w = hyperplane normal vector;
b = hyperplane y-axis intercept; α = Lagrange multiplier; ɤ =
geometric interval; C = penalty parameter; and ℥ = slack variable,
which is to be minimized.
After the following calculation, the resulting hyperplane
equation is related to the parameter ℥:
X
n
maxi:yi ¼−1 wT xi þ mini:yi ¼1 wT xi
fðxÞ ¼ ai yi ½fðxi Þ; fðxÞx −
i¼1
2 which included three-axis acceleration and three-axis angular
s:t:C ≥ ai ≥ 0; i ¼ 1; ; ; n
X n
a i yi ¼ 0
i¼1
where yi ½ϕðxi Þ; ϕðxÞ = kernel function. Eq. (5) shows that both the
kernel function selection and the size of the penalty parameter
C affect the classification accuracy (Zhou 2016). In order to
effectively map linearly indivisible samples in low-dimensional
space to high-dimensional feature space, four different types of
kernel functions were used to optimize the model in the activities
classification.
Experiment
In this research, experiments were conducted in a laboratory.
Multiple workers simulated the eight most common activities
of steelworkers. These activities included (1) standing, (2) walking,
(3) squatting, (4) cleaning a template, (5) placing rebar, (6) lashing
rebar, (7) welding rebar, and (8) cutting rebar. Common elastic
armbands were fixed on the thigh (Joshua and Varghese 2013)
and wrist of each worker. The selection of the thigh was expected
to simulate the actual work of putting a smartphone in a trousers
pocket, and the selection of the forearm was expected to simulate
wearing a smart bracelet. This kind of wearing method not
only can collect the activity characteristics of the hand and leg
but also can minimize the impact on the workers of wearing the
equipment.
Data Collection
In this research, 25 graduate students from engineering manage-
ment were selected as experimental subjects. All of them had in-
ternship experience on the construction site, had mastered the work
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flow of the steel workers, and were familiar with the construction
activities. Then, 25 experiments were done to simulate the con-
struction process. During these experiments, smartphones were
used for data collection which was equipped with a three-axis ac-
celerometer and gyroscope. The data collection frequency was
set at 10 Hz, which meant that 10 data were collected per second.
This frequency ensured that no featured actions were missed and
that there was no increased computing time because of data re-
dundancy. Five experimenters were asked to perform the eight
motions listed previously in sequence. Each action lasted 40 s,
and after a 1-min interval, the next round was performed. Finally,
25 sets of experimental data were obtained. In addition, the entire
experiment was recorded by VCR. Using the Orion CC software,
the collected data were transferred to a remote computer via
the website. At the same time, every datum collected by Orion CC
was given a corresponding time stamp with an accuracy of
0.001 s; then, each set of data could be labeled corresponding
ð4Þ
to the recorded video.
Data Pretraining and Results
In order to quickly build a model, this paper randomly intercepted
every action data of each person for 15 s. Therefore, it could
be calculated that each data set had 6,000 data points. One-fifth
of the data were used as a test set, and four-fifths of the data were
used as a training set. Each data point had 12 dimensions,
rotation of the wrist and leg. Eight dimensions were added to
the original data: mean, variance, standard deviation (STD), maxi-
mum, minimum, range, root mean square (RMS), and correlation.
ð5Þ According to the characteristics of SVM, each new dimension
could effectively help the SVM method find a better optimal hy-
perplane in the data training and then improve the classification
accuracy.
Furthermore, the collected data were normalized, which lim-
ited the data to a certain range in order to reduce error. In this
paper, different normalization methods are used, and the classi-
fication accuracy are compared on the basis of the same other
parameters. The normalization method and the results are
presented in Table 2.
As presented in Table 2, for the classification of test data, the
normalized processing can effectively help the classification.
In particular, the [−1; 1] normalization method helps the model
improve the classification accuracy by 10% and save 6 s in the
prediction process. In addition, as the low-dimensional spatially
inseparable model can be linearly distinguished by mapping non-
linearly to high-dimensional feature space, the SVM kernel func-
tion for the program is filtrated. Furthermore, bringing in the kernel
function can help avoid a dimension disaster. Thus, the computa-
tional process greatly reduces the amount of computation. As the
dimension of the input space has no effect on the kernel function
Table 2. Accuracy comparison of different normalization methods
Normalization Accuracy
method (%) Equation Time (s)
No normalization 79.917 None 16.238
method
x − xmin
[−1; 1] normalization 89.333 y¼2× þ ð−1Þ 10.950
xmax − xmin
x − xmin
[0,1] normalization 88.5 y¼ 11.189
xmax − xmin
04019039-5 J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 Table 3. Accuracy comparison of different kernel function
Kernel Accuracy
function (%) Equation
Linear 88.5 K½xi ; xj  ¼gxTi xj þ b 11.189
Polynomial 92.667 K½xi ; xj  ¼ðgxTi xj þ gÞd ; g
>0 10.614
Radial basis 94.167 K½xi ; xj  ¼ expð−gkxi − xj k2 Þ; g > 0 10.9313
function
Sigmoid 27.333 K½xi ; xj  ¼ tanhðgxTi xj þ gÞ
matrix, the kernel function method can effectively deal with the
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high-dimension input. Four kernel functions are compared, and
the results are presented in Table 3.
It is evident from the data in Table 3 that the choice of a non-
linear kernel function not only can improve the classification ac-
curacy but can also improve the calculation speed. Moreover, in
the case of the same other parameters, the sigmoid kernel function
receives the worst classification effect. In contrast, the polynomial
kernel function achieves a good classification effect with the
shortest computation time, and the radial basis function achieves
the highest classification effect, and its calculation time is almost
the same as that of the polynomial kernel function.
Data Training and Discussion
Finally, as shown by Eq. (5), the choice of the slack variable
parameter C affects the hyperplane equation. Furthermore, a
suitable slack variable can both improve the ability to deal with
unbalanced data sets and further improve its stability. In addition,
the parameter g in the kernel function implicitly determines the
distribution of the data to the new feature space. To find the most
reasonable parameters, there are three main algorithms for
optimizing the parameters: the grid search method, particle swarm
optimization (PSO) method, and genetic algorithm (GA) method.
After that, the cross-validation method is used to group the origi-
nal data and verify the accuracy of the parameters found in the
above methods. In k-fold cross-validation, data are divided into
k parts with an equal number of data points. Next, in k recursive
steps, one part is left out for testing and the remaining k − 1 parts
are used for training. Then, k models are obtained, and the average
classification accuracy of the k model validation sets is used as the
Fig. 4. (a) Ordinary predictive accuracy; and (b) grid search predictive accuracy.
© ASCE
J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2019, 145(7): 04019039
performance standard of the k-fold cross validation classification.
In addition, this method can effectively avoid overfitting and
Time (s) underfitting.
Fig. 4(a) shows the relationship between the prediction points
and the actual points without parameter optimization. The eight
scales on the y-axis correspond to the eight motions in the experi-
ment, with a total of 1,200 points for each 150 test data points. For
12.2207 Action 2 from the 750–1,500 data points on the x-axis, the dot rep-
resents the actual action tag and ∣ represents the predictive data tag.
The figure shows that most of the prediction points of Action 2
coincide with the actual points and that the total prediction accuracy
rate is 94.1667%, but there are still several points appearing on the
scale of Actions 4 and 5, indicating that the model mistook the
points of Action 2 for Actions 4 and 5. This erroneous prediction
also occurred in Actions 4 and 5; the number of wrong predictions
were 31 and 35, respectively.
Fig. 4(b) shows the results of the grid search method for
randomly selecting parameters C and g in the range 0–100. The
accuracy rate was improved to 95.5%. However, this method gen-
erates parameters randomly, making the results unstable, and the
calculation time reached 3,474 s, which is too long to obtain a high
modeling efficiency.
Fig. 5(a) shows the PSO intelligence algorithm used to optimize
parameters. Compared with a random pick parameter, this method
can effectively improve the accuracy. As shown in Fig. 5(b), the
fitness value represents stability of average accuracy. Blue dis-
counts are somewhat concentrated between 85 and 90, which
means the resulting forecasting model has a good stability. After
multiple iterations, it can be concluded that the prediction accuracy
of this method is in the range 94.8333%–95.6667%.
Fig. 6 shows the GA smart algorithm used in this paper. This
method can greatly reduce the grid search time to 3004 s, and the
precision is improved to 95.583%. At the same time, as shown in
Fig. 6(b), compared with the PSO method this algorithm is also
more stable and more suitable for the construction site. As shown
in Fig. 6(a), the prediction accuracy of each action classification is
distinguishing. Most actions have almost no prediction error points,
and the quantities of mispredicted points for Actions 4 and 5 are 17
and 31, respectively. Compared with Fig. 4(a), the accuracy of each
action has been promoted.
Finally, the classification accuracy of the data extracted by the
remaining workers also kept at high levels: 97.3333%, 94.3333%,
99.25%, and 99.0833%, respectively.
04019039-6 J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by GADJAH MADA UNIVERSITY on 08/14/19. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
(a) (b)
Fig. 5. (a) PSO predictive accuracy; and (b) literation accuracy by polynomial.
fitness value
(a) (b)
Fig. 6. (a) GA predictive accuracy; and (b) literation accuracy by polynomial.
Summary and Conclusion
Construction work is very labor intensive and often stipulates that
workers go beyond their natural physical limits. In addition, the
workers always work in complex outdoor environments. Conse-
quently, workers in the construction industry are more exposed
to danger, which can translate into significant amounts of loss
in a project’s financial and human resources and negatively impact
productivity. Simultaneously, previous research has found that
there is no suitable software to monitor live workers’ activity.
To overcome these implementation challenges, smartphone sensors
were used as measurement tools due to their ubiquity, low procure-
ment and maintenance costs, and ease of use. In addition, this paper
cited the labor intensity concept, adopted the smartphone as the
data acquisition method, and improved the support vector machine
learning mode data, because the construction state of the workers is
difficult to quantify.
© ASCE 04019039-7
J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2019, 145(7): 04019039
100
99.5
Best fitness
Average fitness
99
98.5
98
97.5
97
96.5
0 50 100 150
Evolutionary algebra
The original classification accuracy of the SVM method is not
high because some SVM parameters are set randomly. Therefore,
the data were normalized to optimize the original data set. Addi-
tionally, the classification accuracy of the kernel function, the pen-
alty coefficient, and the iterative coefficient were optimized by the
cross-validation method under multitudinous optimization meth-
ods, from which the optimal parameters were selected to maximize
the classification accuracy. In other words, a model to measure
workers’ actions from the smartphone sensory data was developed.
For validation of the developed program, an experiment was
performed with a smartphone fixed on a worker’ right leg and wrist.
Data were collected from smartphone sensors when the worker per-
formed a heavy task. Through the contrast between the predicted
value and the actual value in the case of normalized kernel func-
tions and parameter selection, it was found that the predicted results
based on the hypothesis were in very close agreement with the
observation-based measurements and could be reliably used to
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 assess the ergonomic action with the normal task conducted by
workers.
It must be noted that although the presented results focused pri-
marily on posture analysis of a baseboard steel bender, the program
can actually be used with other types of construction workers.
Moreover, the developed method has enough precision to serve
the construction supervisor in determining the construction effi-
ciency of the construction workers.
Overall, this paper presents an algorithm framework for work-
ers’ labor intensity with mobile acquisition, wireless transmission,
intelligent computing, and high accuracy. To continue, this frame-
work has found a feasible way for promoting the usage rate of the
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by GADJAH MADA UNIVERSITY on 08/14/19. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
labor standard. The application of this algorithm framework can
identify key types of work or processes for workers’ physical labor
intensity. In addition, the method can help reduce workers’ labor
intensity and improve labor productivity in a focused and planned
manner.
Future Work
The study was limited to a select number of laboratory samples, this
may be different from the actual action samples. Next, we will ap-
ply this research to the actual work, and collect on-site workers’
actions to verify the feasibility of the method. The described results
reflect a single worker’s labor intensity. Therefore, more attention
for future work will be contracted on crowdsourcing, which means
establishing a website to collect the data extracted from Orion CC.
Crowdsourcing is a specific sourcing model in which individuals or
organizations use contributions from Internet users to obtain
needed services or ideas. On one hand, crowdsourcing may reduce
our data collection difficulty. On the other hand, it can use construc-
tion workers’ resources reasonably. Moreover, crowdsourcing may
unite all construction workers to expand the labor intensity data-
base and in the future make the feedback more accurate.
Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during the study are available from the
corresponding author by request. Information about the Journal’s
data-sharing policy can be found here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10
.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001263.
Acknowledgments
The presented work is supported by the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities of China (No. DUT18JC44).
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