Ford Motor Co. and researchers from the University of Windsor are exploring how 3D motion capture technology could increase worker safety and efficiency on the assembly line.
Using the same technology Hollywood uses to create films like Planet of the Apes and Avatar, researchers create computer-generated work stations and digital employees to analyze the ergonomics of any job on the line.
With more than 400 assembly line stations in the auto average factory, it can be costly and time consuming to create a physical simulated work station for each one. That’s why the 3D technology and computer animation is being used.
Professor Joel Cort is one of the researchers working on the project. He can mock up basic physical work stations in his lab, using a variety of items, such as plastic quarter panels, desks and doweling and rubber hoses and more. He uses those to test the $60,000 motion capture technology and software.
Once initial analysis of the technology itself is complete in his lab, ensuring that all the sensors and software work well together, employees at Ford’s Windsor engine plants and the company’s Oakville assembly plant will be outfitted with a motion capture suit.
As the employees work, the high-tech suit, which includes special gloves and 36 sensors, will record their movements on the factory floor. All that information will be uploaded to a computer which will generate what Cort called “a digital mannequin” that will work on a digital assembly line.