Weight Estimation of Lifted Object from Body Motions Using Neural Network

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method based on machine learning, which estimates the mass of an object from a body motion performed to lift it. In the field of behavior recognition and prediction, some previous studies had focused on estimating the current or future state of a person from his/her motion. In contrast, this research estimates the information of an object in contact with a person. Using this method, we can obtain a rough estimate of an object’s mass without using a weighing machine. Such a measurement system will be useful in several applications, for example, for estimating the excess weight of baggage before checking-in at the airport. We believe that this system can also be used for the evaluation of haptic illusions such as the size–weight illusion. The proposed system detects human-body joints as the input dataset for machine learning. We created a neural network that estimated an object’s mass in real-time, u/sing data from a single person for training. The experimental results showed that the proposed system could estimate an object’s mass more accurately than human senses.