Contrôle de l'équilibre des humains virtuels

Ce chapitre aborde le problème de l'analyse de l'équilibre et de la synthèse par la ommande de la coordination des mouvements d'humains virtuels pour la simulation réaliste d'activités physiques quotidiennes ou professionnelles. nous discutons dans un premier temps les notions d'équilibre postural et de stabilité de cet équilibre dans le cadre particulier des mannequins numériques. Nous introduisons un modèle mécanique pour des mannequins en interaction physique avec l'environnement. À partir d'une formulation générale du problème de l'équilibre, nous examinons un certain nombre de moyens proposés pour caractériser et quantifier la stabilité de l'équilibre des systèmes mécaniques contraints. Nous introduisons la notion de perturbation admissible pour la dynamique posturale vis-à-vis des contraintes de persistance et de non-glissement des appuis. Enfin, nous proposons des techniques de synthèse par la commande de fonctions motrices pour une coordination de l'ensemble du système postural et de manipulation satisfaisant explicitement les contraintes d'équilibre des appuis

Simulation of a non-smooth dynamical model of the piano key

International audienceFollowing the literature, two kinds of models for the grand piano action are presented here: one single-degree-of-freedom model and one model based on 6 rotating bodies, 13 contact zones with nonlinear springs, 3 of them (hammer-jack, jack-escapement button, hammer-check) being also subject to Coulomb friction. The latter is simulated by a non-smooth dynamics approach. It appears that force-driven simulations of the key position compare equally well for both models. This is not true for position-driven simulations of the reaction force exerted by the piano key on the pianist's finger

Comparative Review of Endoscopic Devices Articulations Technologies Developed for Minimally Invasive Medical Procedures

This study introduces a comparative performance analysis of the technological solutions that have been used to build distal active articulations for minimally invasive medical procedures. The aim is to provide a practical and concise database and classification tool for anyone that wants to learn more about the technologies involved in minimally invasive medical devices, or for any designer interested in further improving these devices. A review of the different articulations developed in this field is therefore performed and organized by both actuation technology and structural architecture. Details are presented concerning the mechanical structures as well as the actuation and the mechanical transmission technologies available. The solutions are evaluated keeping as a reference some chosen required performances and characteristics for minimally invasive surgical procedures. Finally, a quantified comparison chart of these devices is given regarding selected criteria of interest for minimally invasive surgical application

Designing a Virtual Manikin Animation Framework Aimed at Virtual Prototyping

International audienceIn the industry, numerous commercial packages provide tools to introduce, and analyse human behaviour in the product's environment (for maintenance, ergonomics...), thanks to Virtual Humans. We will focus on control. Thanks to algorithms newly introduced in recent research papers, we think we can provide an implementation, which even widens, and simplifies the animation capacities of virtual manikins. In order to do so, we are going to express the industrial expectations as for Virtual Humans, without considering feasibility (not to bias the issue). The second part will show that no commercial application provides the tools that perfectly meet the needs. Thus we propose a new animation framework that better answers the problem. Our contribution is the integration - driven by need ~ of available new scientific techniques to animate Virtual Humans, in a new control scheme that better answers industrial expectations

Passive Control Architecture for Virtual Humans

International audienceIn the present paper, we introduce a new control architecture aimed at driving virtual humans in interaction with virtual environments, by motion capture. It brings decoupling of functionalities, and also of stability thanks to passivity. We show projections can break passivity, and thus must be used carefully. Our control scheme enables task space and internal control, contact, and joint limits management. Thanks to passivity, it can be easily extended. Besides, we introduce a new tool as for manikin's control, which makes it able to build passive projections, so as to guide the virtual manikin when sharp movements are needed

Integration of a Balanced Virtual Manikin in a Virtual Reality Platform aimed at Virtual Prototyping

International audienceThe work presented here is aimed at introducing a virtual human controller in a virtual prototyping framework. After a brief introduction describing the problem solved in the paper, we describe the interest as for digital humans in the context of concurrent engineering. This leads us to draw a control architecture enabling to drive virtual humans in a real-time immersed way, and to interact with the product, through motion capture. Unfortunately, we show this control scheme can lead to unfeasible movements because of the lack of balance control. Introducing such a controller is a problem that was never addressed in the context of real-time. We propose an implementation of a balance controller, that we insert into the previously described control scheme. Next section is dedicated to show the results we obtained. Finally, we propose a virtual reality platform into which the digital character controller is integrated