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In factories of the future, advanced automation systems (e.g., cobots, exoskeletons, cyber physical systems) will reduce the physical effort of workers and compensate their limitations as well as ensure more flexibility, agility, and competitiveness. However, the activities of the operator 4.0 will entail an increased share of complex cognitive tasks. Therefore, monitoring the mental load will be increasingly important to ensure work environments that promote healthy life and wellbeing for all at all ages. For this aim, this paper proposes a framework to analyze heart rate, galvanic skin response and electrooculogram signals in order to extract features able to detect an excessive stress or cognitive load. Two wearable devices are used: Empatica E4 wristband and J!NS MEME electrooculography glasses. The proposed framework has been experimented through a laboratory test focused on LEGO brick-based simulations of manufacturing activities.

Mold heating is an important key factor for the mold cycle which affects the quality of the molded product. The involved molding processes regards polymers foaming, plastics injection, or resin-curing with composites. While the manufacturing cycle of plastics injection molding requires a heating/cooling system, other processes do not require the cooling phase. Polymers foaming and resin-curing require specific values of temperature to provide full chemical reactions and a good product quality on the surface. Induction heating systems are suitable for such applications; however, many industrial cases require customized solutions to support the molding cycle of different parts. A temperature control is always mandatory to reduce the energy cost and increase the heating efficiency. This paper studies a molds temperature control applied in the polyurethane foaming of footwear soles. The proposed induction heating system and its control have been studied using the Hardware-In-the-Loop simulations. Due to a high mold thermal inertia, which increases the mold temperature even if the control system turns off the thermal power, tailored controllers have been analyzed to achieve the desired temperature set-point. The thermal model of the foaming mold and the induction heating system have been modelled and developed in the MATLAB/Simulink® framework. An ATMEGA processor was used to implement and test a discrete PID controller while Simulink induction-heating system model was running, creating an Hardware-In-The-loop platform.

Multimodal sensory stimulation is one of the most important challenges in human-computer interaction. When we want to play a virtual system it is important that the reproduced signals to stimulate the different sensory channels are synchronized with each other. This paper presents the study and implementation of a multimodal stimulation system. The proposed system is a step forwards a previous developed tactile platform (called Ipertouch 1.0). Main novelties regard the introduction of audio and visual feedbacks and signals synchronization. For acoustic stimulation, an auralization algorithm is applied on records of rubbing finger on a given class of material. For visual stimulation, a 3D rendering software is developed. Tests are performed to evaluate the degree of synchronism among the three different sensory channels.

Nowadays Virtual Prototyping (VP) of robots dynamics is an effective tool to simulate the system behavior and improve the quality of rehabilitation activities. Using a VP software environment, the patients can be visually guided in their actions and the physiotherapist can control the system parameters easily to investigate the patients' performances in real time. In this paper VP concept is introducted to support the use of an upper-limb orthosis and to improve therapeutic efficacy in rehabilitation. The system adopted is a human-worn rehabilitation exoskeleton enhanced with a VP-based application to make therapeutic exercises more accessible while reducing the effort in using the system and managing the therapy. The VP application in particular merges computational musculoskeletal analysis with simplified controls, 3D viewing and real time simulation of the patients' movements. The application has been designed to specifically address the needs of patients and therapists and improve the satisfaction in use of the global system as well as the therpy results. The system validation is based on an ad-hoc evaluation protocol and is carried out by directly involving final users furing rehabilitation sessions. Experimental results demonstrated how VP prototyping effectively support the system use from both patients and physiotherapists: on one hand patients are nove motivated and they learn extract movements faster; on the other hand physiotherapists are supportedin diagnosis and data elaboration, and finally the rehabilitation therapy efficiency is improved.

Nowadays Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies can be successfully applied to create assistive systems able to support frail and elderly people and promote active aging. Indeed, objects are ready and matured enough to be applied at low cost and can exchange information each other by proper communication protocols available on the market. However, there are still some open issues limiting the diffusion of such technologies and their effective introduction in people everyday life. Limitations mainly refer to three aspects: low system usability, poor acceptance by users, and lack of personalization and flexibility. The first two issues directly derive from the technology-oriented approach adopted in designing such systems, which does not consider the users' needs. The third issue is mainly due to the adoption of standard protocols that allow communication only among a set of compliant devices. The present research proposes a new model to design an AAL system to support active aging by adopting a user-centred approach to define an interoperable architecture integrating different types of Smart Object. The result is a high usable and flexible platform that allows creating user-friendly products as well as services and realizing also high-level functions by integrating data from completely different contexts. The research case study specifically addresses elderly people needs living alone or affected by chronic disease, which require a continuous control and feedback.

In a scenario of small and customized production of electric vehicle, it is important to set methods and tools to evaluate the Li-Ion cells heat source in EV battery. The main problem of the new lithium batteries is represented by the need to keep the battery packs at uniform and constant temperatures and avoid peaks of temperatures which cause degradation of performance and safety problem. The main issue concerns the characterization of a thermal model to calculate the heat generated by electrochemical reactions in a single battery cell. In order to achieve this objective, electrical tests have been conducted to obtain the parameters such as voltage curves, open circuit voltage, and capacity for different type of Li-Ion cells and different rate of current in charge and discharge. During experiments, the use of an IR camera allows to acquire real temperature data under working conditions. These tests concern one cell per time, analyzed in natural convection condition at constant external temperature. The heat generation is evaluated solving the analytical thermal formula which depends on the current rate. The approach has been validated comparing the calculated temperature values with experimental data. The proposed methodology allows to determine the heat generated and temperature for different working condition.

Nowadays, Virtual Reality technologies have spread in numerous industrial and research contexts for their ability to provide the perception of virtual spaces and objects by an appropriate combination of sensory channels stimuli. Haptic feedback enhances the user's perceptual immersion during the interaction with virtual prototypes. Commercial haptic force feedback devices are affected by some functional limitations, such as the size of workspace and the type of contact they can provide. The present work aims at developing an innovative device starting from the customization of an anthropomorphic arm. This allows to increase the workspace, to provide a surface contact and to improve the whole ergonomics of the system. The system multi-layer architecture is designed to have a lower level of robot control and a higher level of highly usable graphic user interface, which displays both the virtual prototype and the manipulating virtual probe.

In recent years International and Communitarian directives have focused their attention on the problem of energy consumption. In this context electric motors play a key role and designers must improve products considering this direction. This paper presents an innovative platform, called EROD (Energy Reduction Oriented Design), which consists of multiple software modules with different functionalities to support the whole design process of electric motors. The goal of EROD platform is to achieve energy efficient and sustainable electric motors and related devices. The platform facilitates knowledge and data sharing among design team members, it arranges the workflow activities and finally it promotes collaborative design sessions. All functionalities are implemented within the same web-based platform. This guarantees interoperability among different tools and leads up to significant reduction of development time due to the elimination of errors and iterations. The platform was tested to design five innovative electric motors for industrial and household applications. Results show that the new developed motors improve current solutions in terms of energy efficiency and environmental impact during use.

Geometrical tolerances control of mechanical components requires methods and tools in order to improve the efficiency of process in terms of time. Dedicated software systems in order to plan and simulate the control and hardware tools in order to rapidly acquire the needed 3D information can support the process improvement. In this context it is important to use the 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) model, as base to plan and pilot the whole process. The aim of present work is to describe an automatic geometrical tolerances measurement system usable during the design stage. It is based on three main tools: a CAD-based modular software tool, in order to plan, simulate, and pilot the whole verification process, a 3D optical digitizer, as shape acquisition system, and a multi-axis Degree of Freedom (DoF) robot arm in order to move the digitizer. This paper is focused on the developed algorithms to optimize the 3D views acquisition planning. Surface Normal Method and Visibility Map concepts have been reworked for range scanner positions determination and the optimal path is computed by a graph of alignable simulated scans. Experimental test cases are reported in order to show the system performance.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is becoming increasinglymore important as an assessment tool within the designof modern products. LCA may be used to minimize theenvironmental impact of a design during the entire lifecycle of a product, and to highlight weak points andareas requiring special attention and improvement.However, obtaining the life cycle inventories (LCI)required for LCA is often too expensive, as data isdifficult to obtain and the amount of data required is veryconsiderable.This paper introduces a framework for the integration ofdata from a product model and an LCI data base. Withinthe approach taken, efficient access to the LCI-relevantdata is realized by utilizing feature technology as ameans to relate with a sound semantics framework and ageometrical model linked to individual productproperties. 1. Introduction Recognition of the impact of production andconsumption of products, and the use of services, on theworld’s resources and environment has increased theimportance of life cycle assessment (LCA). However,proper translation and efficient application of LCAmethods is a very expensive and time consuming taskdue to the complexity of the problem and the vastamount of data required. Information access andcollection, in particular, is expensive in a non-integratedenvironment. For example, a recent partial inventory(compiled by Japanese research scientists) of themanufacture of 2 grams of microchips indicated that 1.6kg of fossil fuels, 72 grams of various chemicals and 32liters of water were required. Demand for energy efficient,environment friendly, multi-functional products andservices is driving development of new technologies andadvanced designs covering as much as possible of aproduct’s entire life cycle. Advanced key technologies,along with digital models and computer-aided /computer-based systems, are still not sufficientlyintegrated to make life cycle modeling (LCM) methodsand technologies, even if well translated, suitable toolsfor designers and engineers in practice. The currentsituation resembles an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, withmany isolated frameworks and systems, aiming in thesame direction and trying to solve similar problems, butunable as yet to form a complete picture of componentslocated at appropriate places within a well integratedunity.