Anatomy

Identification (biology)

Physics

Relevance (law)

Archaeology

Pure mathematics

Human skull

Identity (music)

Forensic identification

Mathematics

Biology

Superimposition

Political science

Artificial intelligence

Geography

Acoustics

Forensic anthropology

Data science

Skull

Computer science

Botany

Field (mathematics)

Medicine

Applied Sciences

This paper represents the first survey on the application of AI techniques for the analysis of biomedical images with forensic human identification purposes. Human identification is of great relevance in today’s society and, in particular, in medico-legal contexts. As consequence, all technological advances that are introduced in this field can contribute to the increasing necessity for accurate and robust tools that allow for establishing and verifying human identity. We first describe the importance and applicability of forensic anthropology in many identification scenarios. Later, we present the main trends related to the application of computer vision, machine learning and soft computing techniques to the estimation of the biological profile, the identification through comparative radiography and craniofacial superimposition, traumatism and pathology analysis, as well as facial reconstruction. The potentialities and limitations of the employed approaches are described, and we conclude with a discussion about methodological issues and future research.

A Survey on Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Biomedical Image Analysis in Skeleton-Based Forensic Human Identification