Constraints for Motion Generation in Work Planning with Digital Human Simulations

Flexible and varied manual assembly processes in the automotive industry are often based on manual labor. While simulation can be used to improve planning to maximize efficiency while minimizing ergonomic issues for workers, common simulation tools require extensive modeling time. In such simulations, the users are often process engineers who want to easily create complex human motion simulations. This paper presents a concept developed to create complex human motions for interacting with objects in a production environment with little effort. The concept separates between geometric constraints and the semantic meaning of the respective geometry. With a set of data types developed for this purpose based on a unified ontology, a range of geometric and semantic information can be specified for arbitrary objects. In this way, an action-specific motion generator can be used to define the appropriate motion for the interaction with an object depending on the action without defining case-specific constraints. For a first proof, the concept is tested and demonstrated in the assembly of a pedal car and sitting on a chair at a manual workstation. Based on the use case, the effect of effort reduction is shown.