Digital manufacturing in fiat group automobiles: virtual simulations for preliminary ergonomics optimization of workcells in the design phase of a new car model

New standards on work organization in the automotive industry, require a new concept of design methods: the human centred process. In Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) the “Digital Manufacturing” (DM) project has started with the goal to create simulation tools and methods to improve the design of new cars’manufacturing processes giving a special attention to manual operations. The DM approach is based on a detailed “virtual plant” where virtual mannequins interact with digital models of car’s components, equipment, containers, etc. in order to simulate and improve working conditions with many benefits on ergonomics, safety, final product quality, work organization and general production costs. The key factor for this approach is that with DM methodologies, designers and engineers have, already in the design phase of a new car’s manufacturing process, a preliminary estimation of the numerical indices used in the plants to check if workcells are compliant to international standards and regional safety laws. In this way the most important ergonomic indices (like Niosh, Snook & Ciriello, EAWS, etc.) become a “design tool” that allow to change/improve project solutions (designing easy and comfortable work tasks, equipment, tools, etc.) and to distribute the work load in an optimal way between workers

Кибербезопасность в образовательных сетях

The paper discusses the possible impact of digital space on a human, as well as human-related directions in cyber-security analysis in the education: levels of cyber-security, social engineering role in cyber-security of education, “cognitive vaccination”. “A Human” is considered in general meaning, mainly as a learner. The analysis is provided on the basis of experience of hybrid war in Ukraine that have demonstrated the change of the target of military operations from military personnel and critical infrastructure to a human in general. Young people are the vulnerable group that can be the main goal of cognitive operations in long-term perspective, and they are the weakest link of the System.У статті обговорюється можливий вплив цифрового простору на людину, а також пов'язані з людиною напрямки кібербезпеки в освіті: рівні кібербезпеки, роль соціального інжинірингу в кібербезпеці освіти, «когнітивна вакцинація». «Людина» розглядається в загальному значенні, головним чином як та, що навчається. Аналіз надається на основі досвіду гібридної війни в Україні, яка продемонструвала зміну цілей військових операцій з військовослужбовців та критичної інфраструктури на людину загалом. Молодь - це вразлива група, яка може бути основною метою таких операцій в довгостроковій перспективі, і вони є найслабшою ланкою системи.В документе обсуждается возможное влияние цифрового пространства на человека, а также связанные с ним направления в анализе кибербезопасности в образовании: уровни кибербезопасности, роль социальной инженерии в кибербезопасности образования, «когнитивная вакцинация». «Человек» рассматривается в общем смысле, в основном как ученик. Анализ представлен на основе опыта гибридной войны в Украине, которая продемонстрировала изменение цели военных действий с военного персонала и критической инфраструктуры на человека в целом. Молодые люди являются уязвимой группой, которая может быть главной целью когнитивных операций в долгосрочной перспективе, и они являются самым слабым звеном Систем

Natural Virtual Reality User Interface to Define Assembly Sequences for Digital Human Models

Digital human models (DHMs) are virtual representations of human beings. They are used to conduct, among other things, ergonomic assessments in factory layout planning. DHM software tools are challenging in their use and thus require a high amount of training for engineers. In this paper, we present a virtual reality (VR) application that enables engineers to work with DHMs easily. Since VR systems with head-mounted displays (HMDs) are less expensive than CAVE systems, HMDs can be integrated more extensively into the product development process. Our application provides a reality-based interface and allows users to conduct an assembly task in VR and thus to manipulate the virtual scene with their real hands. These manipulations are used as input for the DHM to simulate, on that basis, human ergonomics. Therefore, we introduce a software and hardware architecture, the VATS (virtual action tracking system). This paper furthermore presents the results of a user study in which the VATS was compared to the existing WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer) interface. The results show that the VATS system enables users to conduct tasks in a significantly faster way

Automation and robotics for the Space Exploration Initiative: Results from Project Outreach

A total of 52 submissions were received in the Automation and Robotics (A&R) area during Project Outreach. About half of the submissions (24) contained concepts that were judged to have high utility for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) and were analyzed further by the robotics panel. These 24 submissions are analyzed here. Three types of robots were proposed in the high scoring submissions: structured task robots (STRs), teleoperated robots (TORs), and surface exploration robots. Several advanced TOR control interface technologies were proposed in the submissions. Many A&R concepts or potential standards were presented or alluded to by the submitters, but few specific technologies or systems were suggested

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications