This paper proposes DigitalUpSkilling, a novel IoT- and AI-based framework for improving and personalising the training of workers who are involved in physical-labour-intensive jobs. DigitalUpSkilling uses wearable IoT sensors to observe how individuals perform work activities. Such sensor observations are continuously processed to synthesise an avatar-like kinematic model for each worker who is being trained, referred to as the worker's digital twins. The framework incorporates novel work activity recognition using generative adversarial network (GAN) and machine learning (ML) models for recognising the types and sequences of work activities by analysing an individual's kinematic model. Finally, the development of skill proficiency ML is proposed to evaluate each trainee's proficiency in work activities and the overall task. To illustrate DigitalUpSkilling from wearable IoT-sensor-driven kinematic models to GAN-ML models for work activity recognition and skill proficiency assessment, the paper presents a comprehensive study on how specific meat processing activities in a real-world work environment can be recognised and assessed. In the study, DigitalUpSkilling achieved 99% accuracy in recognising specific work activities performed by meat workers. The study also presents an evaluation of the proficiency of workers by comparing kinematic data from trainees performing work activities. The proposed DigitalUpSkilling framework lays the foundation for next-generation digital personalised training.
Keywords: internet of things; machine learning; wearable sensors; work activity recognition; worker training.