Last week, we had the privilege of visiting Ford’s Virtual Reality Lab in Dearborn, Michigan, to get a glimpse of Ford’s use of virtual reality technology. This technology has helped car manufacturers complete a lot of work until the car is officially marketed. We found that Ford mainly used VR technology in three functional areas: design, engineering, and manufacturing.
Use VR technology in car manufacturing
design
Since the conception of a new model was reached, virtual reality technology began to intervene. This will begin in Ford's "2000X Studio", which provides support for Ford's design department.
Of course, in the past, cars were designed using paper and pens. In modern times, designers began to rely on CAD tools. But both of these solutions have obvious flaws. The design of the car - after all, a three-dimensional object - is designed on a two-dimensional plane. With VR technology, Ford's designers can now wear a heads-up, draw their ideas with a digital wand in a 3D environment, and move around in a 3D virtual environment.
Ford's immersive VR uses a 23-camera motion-capture system and heads-up display to immerse workers in their future work environment.
By unlocking the potential for designing in 3D and adding animation content and 3D rendering technology to photo-realistic environments, designers can see in the real world their ideas for new cars become a reality.
For example, a brand-new sports car design process can be performed in a virtual racing field repair track. With the VR head mounted, designers can walk around the car and view it in a 360-degree environment. . As a designer, you can get a complete and accurate visual information of a futuristic car in it, just as if you actually walked by a user's car. This is what VR does, and it can be done on the premise that the car does not really exist.
engineering
When a car's philosophy was validated, Ford decided to make it, and VR would reappear, playing an indispensable role in turning design languages ​​into real end products.
Engineers will immerse themselves in identifying better design details and must make decisions about design details such as product components, engines, and internal ergonomics. As the product designs come together, the Ford Immersive Automotive Environmental Laboratory (FiVE) will continue designing and they will begin to create a full-size, three-dimensional, virtual version of the car until the product gradually enters the production process.
In other words, when the car is really ready for construction, every detail will be carefully considered. For example, seats, dashboards, and light fixtures -- all you can think of -- will become a full-size one. , The virtual version of the car's parts. Later, by using VR helmets, designers and engineers can walk around the car to check it, just as if the car were really in the lab.
Engineers can even "see through" the car as they like. For example, when engineers discuss the hinge structure of the trunk, they can choose to view the metal structure of the trunk through a virtual perspective.
So, why do you want to "make" such a virtual version of a car from scratch?
The use of virtual reality technology can bring extremely high efficiency and unlimited possibilities to the actual engineering process. And these are very difficult for a real work environment. For example, car parts can be replaced frequently—and digitally—for evaluation, such as ergonomics of the passenger section, ride comfort and design of the external panel, or design of the dashboard. Designers can also see how a slight change in the exterior panel of a car can affect the shadows and reflections of light during real driving.
Using this technology, the result of immersive VR technology, as Ford said, can support frequent prototyping changes and engineering development processes. This process is highly repeatable and can accept any necessary engineering changes. For example, when designers were designing new wild horses, they encountered the problem of how the interior panels were placed to meet the requirements of driving left or driving backwards, and they could solve it by using VR. Ford told us like this.
And what's really cool is that designers and engineers can collaborate remotely. For example, when designing a new wild horse, the team at VR Labs in Dearborn can work with an Australian brothers team -- and the collaboration is real-time. Using VR technology, engineers can walk around the same full-size 3D virtual Mustang car and collaborate on any detailed information.
The details of designing a virtual car so carefully are quite laborious. But Ford said that they save a lot of time by using this technology during the engineering phase, and frequent adjustments to digital prototypes also reduce the number of earth models that had to be made before. In addition, remote assistance also reduces travel costs.
All this, of course, will save money. However, Ford believes that more importantly, this technology accelerates the product design process and allows the use of higher-end processes. Ford claimed that, to his knowledge, he was the first car company to use high-resolution, 4K real-time VR technology in the automotive design process.
manufacture
When the design and engineering process was completed, Ford VR Labs began to work on virtual manufacturing technology. This is a very important step and you can give important information back to the design and engineering sections.
The main function of the virtual manufacturing laboratory is to assess the feasibility of manufacturing the car, while also introducing the work content of the workers. After all, no matter how perfect you can design a car, if it cannot be manufactured or the manufacturing process is not safe, it is still equivalent to nothing.
In the virtual manufacturing lab, Ford's team will use VR and 3D printing technology to create virtual workstations to gradually imitate the virtual world of production line environment. And by using a sensor mounted on the worker, the full-body motion capture system provides information on the actions that workers on the production line may produce. After all, these actions are encountered in the real car production process.
Gearbox is virtually mounted on the engine
Using VR and 3D printing technology, a gearbox is virtually mounted on the engine. The screen will show the scene that the user has seen.
For example, in the above photo, you can see a person wearing a VR headpiece, next to a white 3D printing part. This part is a real size gearbox. The employee needs to align the gearbox with the engine, and this engine can only be seen in his head.
This is a real test case to ensure that workers have a good enough angle of view to align the bolts and combine the gearbox with the engine. According to the results obtained in VR, these data will be provided to the engineering team, and the length of bolts and other data will be modified to ensure the normal installation process.
The advantage of using VR technology to plan the production line process is that if a product is easily manufactured, then it can both improve the quality of the product and at the same time reduce the risk of worker injury.
For example, full-body motion capture technology can do this. If a worker must reach out to pick a part during the assembly process, Ford can measure the stress of the worker's lumbar spine, and then assess whether this will exceed the human body. Security restrictions. If this problem does exist, the engineering team must make changes.
For another example, using VR technology can also help calculate how much physical energy is required to lift the body panel to the height and angle of a given robotic arm. Does this affect the recognition of different heights, and if so, is it necessary to change the process to adapt to different workers?
By using VR technology, it is possible to predict the position of workers in the future on the production line. This is extremely valuable data. Ford said that since the beginning of the use of the virtual manufacturing process, there have been noticeable changes in the automotive manufacturing industry:
1. By using the latest ergonomic research, the probability of injury to workers is reduced by 70%.
2. Avoid 90% of excessive exercise, difficult hand movements, and difficult-to-install components on new models.
3, due to reduced injury probability, reduce the probability of absence from work injury by 75%.
In short
To sum up, Ford has used VR technology to enhance its design, engineering, and manufacturing processes, and has proven that VR is a powerful tool in the entire process of product development.
VR is not only an accurate substitute for real-world activities, but also provides tools that can create infinite possibilities. People can select the most appropriate application method in each stage through investigation and evaluation. Each process can be optimized.
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