Theory and applications of InfraRed and thermal image analysis in ergonomics research

Designing products and services to fit human needs, wants and lifestyle require meaningful data. With Industry 4.0 and the internet of things, we have many ways to capture data using sensors and other means. InfraRed (IR) cameras are quite ubiquitous, especially for screening illness and wellness. They can provide a wealth of data on different objects and even people. However, their use has been limited due to processing complexities. With reducing cost and increasing accuracy of IR cameras, access to thermal data is becoming quite widespread, especially in medicine and people-related applications. These cameras have software to help process the data, with a focus on qualitative analyses and rather primitive quantitative analyses. In ergonomics, data from multiple users are essential to make reasonable predictions for a given population. In this study, using 4 simple experiments, several quantitative analysis techniques such as simple statistics, multivariate statistics, geometric modeling, and Fourier series modeling are applied to IR images and videos to extract essential user and population data. Results show that IR data can be useful to provide user and population data that are important for design. More research in modeling IR data and application software is needed for the increased application of IR information in ergonomics applications.