Virtual reality for assembly methods prototyping: a review

Abstract

Assembly planning and evaluation is an important component of the product design process in which details about how parts of a new product will be put together are formalized. A well designed assembly process should take into account various factors such as optimum assembly time and sequence, tooling and fixture requirements, ergonomics, operator safety, and accessibility, among others. Existing computer-based tools to support virtual assembly either concentrate solely on representation of the geometry of parts and fixtures and evaluation of clearances and tolerances or use simulated human mannequins to approximate human interaction in the assembly process. Virtual reality technology has the potential to support integration of natural human motions into the computer aided assembly planning environment (Ritchie et al. in Proc I MECH E Part B J Eng 213(5): [461][462][463][464][465][466][467][468][469][470][471][472][473][474] 1999). This would allow evaluations of an assembler's ability to manipulate and assemble parts and result in reduced time and cost for product design. This paper provides a review of the research in virtual assembly and categorizes the different approaches. Finally, critical requirements and directions for future research are presented. Disciplines Computer-Aided Engineering and Design | Graphics and Human Computer InterfacesComments This is a manuscript of an article from Virtual Reality 15 (2011) AbstractAssembly planning and evaluation is an important component of the product design process in which details about how parts of a new product will be put together are formalized. A well designed assembly process should take into account various factors such as optimum assembly time and sequence, tooling and fixture requirements, ergonomics, operator safety, and accessibility, among others.Existing computer-based tools to support virtual assembly either concentrate solely on representation of the geometry of parts and fixtures and evaluation of clearances and tolerances or use simulated human mannequins to approximate human interaction in the assembly process.Virtual reality (VR) technology has the potential to support integration of natural human motions into the computer aided assembly planning environment (CAAP) [1]. This would allow evaluations of an assembler's ability to manipulate and assemble parts and result in reduced time and cost for product design. This paper provides a review of the research in virtual assembly and categorizes the different approaches Finally, critical requirements and directions for future research are presented.

A new methodology to evaluate the performance of physics simulation engines in haptic virtual assembly

“…Moreover, Seth et al (2011) identified three main challenges that virtual assemblies must overcome to increase the level of realism: collision detection, inter-part constraint detection and PBM.…”

“…Howard and Vance (2007) mentioned that a successful virtual assembly environment requires virtual parts to emulate real world parts behaviour. According to Seth et al (2011) this can be achieved by means of physics-based modelling (PBM), which uses physics simulation engines (PSEs) to simulate real world physics properties, such as friction, gravity and contact forces to perform the assembly. The use of PBM results in better appreciation and understanding of part functionality and can also lead to improved training of manual tasks (Wang et al, 2001;Zerbato et al, 2011).…”

DataSHIELD – New Directions and Dimensions

“…VR software is currently dominated by applications for entertainment and gaming purposes. Existing business or research data visualisation applications tend to be focussed on exploiting the VR environment for representation of spatial data such as engineering drawings, structures and mapping (Berg and Vance, 2016;Boulos et al 2017;Sastry and Boyd, 1998;Seth et al 2011). Within health and medical sciences VR is used for predominantly therapeutic or rehabilitation applications (e.g.…”

Effective Design of Educational Virtual Reality Applications for Medicine using Knowledge-Engineering Techniques

“…et al 2011, Grajewski et al 2015), as well as in many other engineering activities, including simulations of machine operation and assembly (Pandilov et al 2015, Seth et al 2011), knowledge visualization (van Dam et al 2000, and configuration of variant products in the automotive branch , Jiang 2011. Virtual reality has many medical applications (Riva 2003) and is often used for educational purposes (Stansfield et al 2000).…”