AI-Based Pose Estimation of Human Operators in Manufacturing Environments

The fast development of AI-based approaches for image recognition has driven the availability of fast and reliable tools for identifying the human body in captured videos (both 2D and 3D). This has increased the feasibility and effectiveness of approaches for human pose estimation in industrial environments. This essay will cover different approaches for estimating the human pose based on neural networks (e.g., CNN, LSTM, etc.), addressing the workflow and requirements for their implementation and use. A brief analysis and comparison of the existing AI-based frameworks and approaches will be carried out (e.g. OpenPose, MediaPipe) together with a listing of the related hardware and software requirements. Finally, two case studies presenting applications in the manufacturing sector are provided.