Motion Capture Toolkit Development for Postural Assessment. Integration of Virtual Simulation tools for the Ergonomic Evaluation of Work tasks

Industry 4.0 passes through the concept of smart factory that consists of bringing into the industrial context a new vision of the way production lines can be designed and redesign and the workflow organized in light of human factors and ergonomics. New technologies create collaboration between all the elements present in the production: operator, machines and tools. The key for optimal interaction between these elements depends on proper use of these technologies and proper design of working environment. Virtual simulations help us in reproducing such interactions in a flexible environment in order to foresee possible ways to improve them before actually installing tools and equipment in the line. Motion capture techniques have nowadays proved to be able to guarantee with sufficient accuracy the reproduction of human motion in virtual environment enabling to simulate dynamic actions of operator as well. In this thesis, a method for the effective use of Motion Capture data is proposed to derive the postural analysis and ergonomic evaluation of working tasks with the aim of aiding the process of engineering and re-engineering of production activities that involve human operation. Different ways to integrate the method with the already existing tools for virtual simulation are then investigated to integrate the postural analysis and deepening the conclusions. Aim of the thesis is to provide a tool useful for the ergonomic specialists in the process of validation of direct labour needs in terms of time and workload of the operator. In conclusion, a comparison between the already existing methods of ergonomic evaluation is performed to check the coherence between the results and understand the advantages introduced with the use of Motion Capture.