Task-based Motion Control of Digital Humans for Industrial Applications

Nowadays digital substitutes of human beings (digital humans), capable of interacting with digital mock-ups in Virtual Reality, are widely used in many fields of engineering (e.g. ergonomics, product design, maintenance, and training). Nevertheless, the animation process of digital humans is still a time-consuming task, and its accuracy and reliability strongly depend on the experience and the skills of the operator. This paper presents an innovative algorithm capable of significantly speeding up the animation process of digital humans, allowing the operator to focus only on the so-called “task-related control points”. This approach allows also to easily conduct biomechanical analyses. The algorithm has been tested with reference to several application scenarios in Virtual Reality.