Teaching Personal Care Robots about Human Poses
From: Wireless Design Magazine - 07/12/2017

Expectations for care robots are growing against the backdrop of declining
birthrates, an aging population, and a lack of care staff. As an example, for
care at nursing homes and other such facilities, it is anticipated that
robots will check the condition of the residents while patrolling the
facility. When evaluating a person's condition, while an initial estimation
of the pose (standing, sitting, fallen, etc.) is useful, most methods to date
have utilized images. These methods face challenges such as privacy issues,
and difficulties concerning application within darkly lit spaces. As such,
the research group (Kaichiro Nishi, a 2016 master's program graduate, and
Professor Miura of the Toyohashi University of Technology) has developed a
method of pose recognition using depth data alone.

Read the entire article at:
https://www.wirelessdesignmag.com/news/2017/07/teaching-personal-care-robots-about-human-poses

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Human Pose Estimation for Care Robots Using Deep Learning
From: ACM Tech News - 07/12/2017

Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan have developed a
method of pose recognition using only depth data that could be applied to
home care robots. Although there are currently available methods and
instruments for identifying poses such as upright positions and sitting
positions, home care robots must be able to identify other poses, such as a
recumbent position and a crouching position, which have been more difficult
to develop until now. The researchers have established a method to generate a
large amount of training data for these positions by combining computer
graphics (CG) technology and motion-capture technology. The new method first
creates CG data of various body shapes. It then adds information on each body
part, including skeleton information for each joint position, which makes it
possible to make CG models take arbitrary poses by giving the joint angles
using a motion-capture system.

Read the entire article at:
https://www.tut.ac.jp/english/news/10395.html
https://www.tut.ac.jp/english/introduction/docs/pr20170710_miura.pdf

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Related:
A Computer That Reads Body Language 
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/computer-reads-body-language
https://www.ecnmag.com/news/2017/07/computer-reads-body-language-0