A Framework of Motion Capture System Based Human Behaviours Simulation for Ergonomic Analysis

With the increasing of computer capabilities, Computer aided ergonomics (CAE) offers new possibilities to integrate conventional ergonomic knowledge and to develop new methods into the work design process. As mentioned in [1], different approaches have been developed to enhance the efficiency of the ergonomic evaluation. Ergonomic expert systems, ergonomic oriented information systems, numerical models of human, etc. have been implemented in numerical ergonomic software. Until now, there are ergonomic software tools available, such as Jack, Ergoman, Delmia Human, 3DSSPP, and Santos, etc. [2-4]. The main functions of these tools are posture analysis and posture prediction. In the visualization part, Jack and 3DSSPP produce results to visualize virtual human tasks in 3-dimensional, but without realistic physical properties. Nowadays, with the development of computer technology, the simulation of physical world is paid more attention. Physical engines [5] are used more and more in computer game (CG) field. The advantage of physical engine is the nature physical world environment simulation. The purpose of our research is to use the CG technology to create a virtual environment with physical properties for ergonomic analysis of virtual human. In the following sections, firstly we will introduce motion capture system and the related data obtained and processed. Secondly we will illustrate the physical engine, and by using it we create our virtual physical environment. Thirdly, we propose a simulation framework using motion capture system and physical engine for ergonomic analysis. At last, we introduce a study case to present the ergonomic analysis based on a muscle fatigue model.