On motion planning for narrow-clearance assemblies using virtual manikins

Digital Human Modeling (DHM) is an important tool to improve assembly ergonomics and thereby also productivity and product quality. State-of-art DHM tools can simulate challenging assembly operations by solving inverse kinematic problems so that the positions/orientations of the hands/feet of a manikin match some manually-specified targets. However, it is still difficult and time-consuming for a simulation engineer to perform an assembly with narrow insertion clearances by manually setting hand targets. We present a novel and highly automated approach that explores the 4D space (position of a fingertip plus pronation/supination of the arm) around an initial path for a sphere.