Affiliations: Virtual Soldier Research Program, Center for Computer-Aided Design, The University of Iowa, 111 Engineering Research Facility, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000, USA | U.S. Army TACOM/RDECOM, AMSRD-TAR-NAC/157, 6501 East 11 Mile Rd., Warren, MI 48397-5000, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author: Jingzhou Yang, Virtual Soldier Research Program, Center for Computer-Aided Design, The University of Iowa, 111 Engineering Research Facility, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000, USA. Tel: +319 353 2249, Fax: +319 384 0542, Email: jyang@engineering.uiowa.edu
Abstract: The layout problem is of importance to ergonomists, vehicle/cockpit packaging engineers, designers of manufacturing assembly lines, designers concerned with the placement of levers, knobs, controls, etc. in the reachable workspace of a human, and also to users of digital human modeling code, where digital prototyping has become a valuable tool. This paper proposes a hybrid optimization method (gradient-based optimization and simulated annealing) to obtain the layout design. We implemented the proposed algorithm for a project at Oral-B Laboratories, where a manufacturing cell involves an operator who handles three objects, some with the left hand, others with the right hand.
Keywords: Layout design, global optimization, ergonomics, human modeling
