Discomfort Model for Arm Movements

The group human modeling of the Lehrstuhl für Ergonomie at the Technische Universität München has the aim to develop an autonomous digital human model. On this way a general dynamic discomfort model for posture and movement shall be developed in order to predict the perceived discomfort of a human during a task (e.g. lifting of a weight). This can be used to provide suggestions for the concept of a new product.

Using a discomfort model in the dynamic situation that is based on force and posture is unique and leads to a new quality, because the rate of the force or torque potential of a person can be taken into consideration. Motion prediction under load will be improved. This can help to solve current questions of automotive companies like ingress/egress.

In this paper a discomfort model for an arm movement is described and generated in the context of a lifting task. It is derived from a static model and accounts for the force level of a subject. A multi body model of the human arm is used to predict the local and global discomfort. Its attributes and the future development are discussed.