Abstract: A safe and reliable method for automatically locating objects of an observed area of an object cluster in an open container having a plurality of objects of at least one object type. The method includes: receiving a data model of the at least one object type, receiving a trained NN algorithm trained based on the data model of the at least one object type, receiving an elevation map of the observed area of object cluster, identifying a plurality of objects lying on the top side of the observed area of the object cluster and determining the 3-dimensional position and orientation of these objects based on the trained NN algorithm and using exclusively the elevation map with respect to the observed area, and providing the 3-dimensional position and orientation of the plurality of objects lying on the top side of the observed area of the object cluster at an interface of the data processing unit.