Virtual Reality tools and statistical analysis for human movements simulation. Application to ergonomics optimization of workcells in the automotive industry

Abstract

The paper show an application of Virtual Reality (VR) tools and Digital Human Modeling (DHM) methods to improve simulation of assembly tasks in order to achieve an ergonomic optimization of future workcells in car assembly plants. The goal is to perform the simulation in the very early phase of product and process development, when changes to project solutions are easy and costless. Generating synthetic motion with a Digital Human Modeling (DHM) tool that is ergonomically optimized for (eventually different) ergonomic indexes is a longstanding problem in the simulation analysis of ergonomics aspects of workcells. An ergonomic criterion which allows to classify a movement as a ergonomic or not, could be very useful to develop a new approach to synthetic motion generation in postural analysis. The application described is based on Motion Tracking techniques that allow to acquire human movements during a common assembly operation and to obtain the most important kinematic and information to characterize the movements. The results allow to evaluate ergonomics aspects of the synthetically generate motion on the base of statistical and wavelet analysis. By moving a 3D human model, it is possible to verify if the simulation of an assembly task is within an ergonomic criterion.