An Obstacle Avoidance Method Based on Distance Fields in C-Space for Virtual Arm

Abstract

Collision detection is widely used in human motion simulation, however, it is difficult to work in large equipment model. To overcome the problem, this paper studies a collision detection method especially for virtual arm simulation. First, the method simplifies arm and obstacles in its reaching space with the C-space theory, and divides the space into small unit cells to form a distance fields, then extends the surfaces of obstacles to calculate the distances between each cell and its nearest obstacles, so the result of collision detection is depending on the distance fields’ value. Use CAA to redevelop DELMIA and apply it to the virtual assembly simulation of a certain type of aircraft center wing, compared with triangle intersection algorithm and mixed bounding box method, the result shows that the proposed method improves the efficiency of anthropology ergonomics simulation by more than 20% in the same condition.