Human Posture Detection Using Image Augmentation and Hyperparameter-Optimized Transfer Learning Algorithms

With the advancement in pose estimation techniques, human posture detection recently received considerable attention in many applications, including ergonomics and healthcare. When using neural network models, overfitting and poor performance are prevalent issues. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were successfully used for human posture recognition from human images due to their superior multiscale high-level visual representations over hand-engineering low-level characteristics. However, calculating millions of parameters in a deep CNN requires a significant number of annotated examples, which prohibits many deep CNNs such as AlexNet and VGG16 from being used on issues with minimal training data. We propose a new three-phase model for decision support that integrates CNN transfer learning, image data augmentation, and hyperparameter optimization (HPO) to address this problem. The model is used as part of a new decision support framework for the optimization of hyperparameters for AlexNet, VGG16, CNN, and multilayer perceptron (MLP) models for accomplishing optimal classification results. The AlexNet and VGG16 transfer learning algorithms with HPO are used for human posture detection, while CNN and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) were used as standard classifiers for contrast. The HPO methods are essential for machine learning and deep learning algorithms because they directly influence the behaviors of training algorithms and have a major impact on the performance of machine learning and deep learning models. We used an image data augmentation technique to increase the number of images to be used for model training to reduce model overfitting and improve classification performance using the AlexNet, VGG16, CNN, and MLP models. The optimal combination of hyperparameters was found for the four models using a random-based search strategy. The MPII human posture datasets were used to test the proposed approach. The proposed models achieved an accuracy of 91.2% using AlexNet, 90.2% using VGG16, 87.5% using CNN, and 89.9% using MLP. The study is the first HPO study executed on the MPII human pose dataset.