Designing and evaluating a workstation in real and virtual environment: toward virtual reality based ergonomic design sessions

This paper adresses the issue of properly designing a digital mock-up (DMU) to be used in an experiment comparing simulated assembly tasks in both real and virtual environments. Motivations and specifications relative to the experiment are reported, and the design process of the DMU is described and illustrated. Recommendations are proposed with a particular focus on specificities relative to the use of a DMU as a support for both manufacturing and virtual reality-3D visualisation and interaction. A subjective evaluation of Real (RE), Virtual (VE), and Virtual with Force Feedback (VEF) environments is provided. Results indicate a real sensory and difficulty gap between RE and VEF, whereas a smaller difference was observed between RE and VE. In further improvements of scale-1 (where the objects in VE have the same size as in the real environment), co-localized simulation using haptic devices are warranted to fill in this gap. Results also highlight the impact of cognition and sensory feedback on user's feeling and presence sensation. Applications of such numerical designs are presented in the last section, especially focusing on collaborative design sessions. Virtual Reality based evaluation of newly designed workstations will be a way in the future to improve design and user learning processes.