Real-time mental workload assessment with low intrusiveness for assembly processes: Limits and preliminary results

The real-time assessment of mental workload emerges as crucial in Industry 5.0 for optimizing human performance and wellbeing when interacting with complex systems. However, balancing diagnosticity and sensitivity with low intrusiveness in such assessments remains challenging. According to ISO 10075, mental workload is a broad concept encompassing several observable phenomena (e.g., monotony and mental fatigue), each requiring special attention. This paper explores current techniques for real-time assessment of mental workload in manufacturing and presents preliminary results from a case study in an assembly line. The case study integrates physiological metrics (i.e., heart rate variability, electrodermal activity, and eye-tracking) collected by non-invasive biosensors with task performance metrics to highlight benefits and limitations of a low intrusive real-time assessment setup. The need to use more metrics to reliably identify the operator's psychophysical state is also highlighted.