INTERACT Interactive Manual Assembly Operations for the Human-Centered Workplaces of the Future

20 March 2014, Athens

Towards 2030 InterNet Business Innovation

Dr. Kosmas Alexopoulos, LMS

Initial Situation

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Competitive production in Europe needs a skilled workforce supported by advanced tools.

Digital planning and simulation models are key enabler technologies for verifying assembly processes and maximizing productivity.

Such models replace physical prototypes for assessing ergonomics, efficiency, assembly quality and safety.

Digital 3D models are available for assembly planning. For automated tasks models are mature, for manual tasks they lag behind.

Motivation

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Shorter product life cycles and increasing product variance require replacing physical through virtual prototypes for process verification.

Today, human simulations of manual assembly processes are effortsome, non-interactive and differ considerably from shop-floor reality.

More realistic and more interactive 3D models of manual work tasks, which are created with less effort.

Vision and benefits: Academic point of view

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Vision

Bridge the gap between planned manual assembly process and the real

implementations by bringing together simulation and sensor data. This

covers the whole generation of the assembly process, from control natural

representation of tasks, to automatic motion generation.

Virtual assembly process Real process implementation

Vision and benefits: End user point of view

5

Vision

Assuring high product quality and efficient production

despite reduction of physical prototypes

High product quality Efficient production

Main idea

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Human-Centered Workplacefor Manual Assembly Operations

Best fit

simulation

of manual

operations

Sensors for monitoring

manual operations

Classification

of manual

operations

Assembly

Personnel

“Apps”

Shop Floor

/Back office

Planned

Process

Executed

Process

Ergonomics,

safety and efficiency

services to the personnel Process data

Part (s) data

Operator data

Feedback for

optimizing

assembly planning

knowledge

Delta

Precision and accuracy of digital human simulation will be improved, thus achieving faster ramp-ups and first-time-right assembly processes.

INTERACT Sensors and IoT

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• Sensors considered for manual assembly operation monitoring (human motion, physical strains, part and tool tracking)

– Optical tracking systems for human body data (motion, postures, etc)

– MEMS sensor-based tracking systems (e.g. Inertial Measurement Units) for enriched human body data, part and tool motion tracking, and physical strain measurement

– RFID for asset presence detection and location tracking

• IoT approach of Sensor Platform design

– Implementation of wireless and wired Sensor Nodes with small size, low power consumption and unique addressing scheme

– Optimized communication and storage for “Big Data”

– Sensor Network design for easy and fast deployment, configuration and management through “unified” heterogeneous sensor resources access

– Creation of “virtual” sensors with sensor data fusion in multiple levels of the sensor platform

Project information

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Project started: 1st October 2013

Duration: 36 months

Partners: 9 partners, 5 countries

Site: www.interact-fp7.eu

Project Coordinator

Dr. Martin Manns, Daimler

Project Manager

Dr. Kosmas Alexopoulos, LMS

Thank you! www.interact-fp7.eu