Controlling industrial machines by tracking operator movement

A sensor arrangement comprising:

• a camera;
• and
• a visual odometry processor,
• wherein the sensor arrangement is adapted for attachment to a hand of a human operator of an industrial machine, and configured to communicate position data to a computer system that controls an operation of the industrial machine by monitoring movement of the human operator using the camera and the visual odometry processor.

Computer-implemented method to operate an industrial machine, comprising:

• monitoring a position for at least one hand of a human operator with an image capturing device that is mounted on the at least one hand of the human operator and that captures images of the at least one hand;
• calculating position data characterizing the position by visual odometry based on the images;
• and
• processing the position data to provide a control signal to an industrial machine to cause the industrial machine to move according to the position data.

A computer program product, the computer program product being tangibly embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one computing device, are configured to cause the at least one computing device to:

• monitor a position for at least one hand of a human operator with an image capturing device that is mounted on the at least one hand of the human operator and that captures images of the at least one hand;
• calculate position data characterizing the position by visual odometry based on the images;
• and
• process the position data to provide a control signal to a industrial machine to cause the industrial machine to move according to the position data.