Postdoctoral internship in human grasp modeling and simulation

Dassault Systèmes (3DS) has recently released an application called Ergonomic Workplace Design (EWD). This application helps its users (e.g. 3D designers) to assess ergonomic risk in environments such as manufacturing production lines simulated in the 3D world through the use of a Digital Human Model (DHM). The application relies on a grasp planner to predict automatically (i.e. without the user intervention) where and how to grasp objects with one or two hands. The first version of this planner is limited in many ways. These limitations make the planner less robust to the variety and complexity of the scenarios that are encountered in simulated environments. As a result, the planner may predict wrong grasp strategies and grasp locations for the intended task.
The main objective of this project is to improve the grasp planner to handle more complex scenarios. Many of the challenges inherent to that objective are related to the simulation of complex biomechanical relationships between the hand and the object to be grasped (e.g. open/closed kinematic chains, contact points/forces, maximum capacity of grasping forces), and the development of ergonomic measures derived from these relationships (e.g. grasp quality, fatigue).
The candidate enrolled in this project will be part of a multidisciplinary team made of a lead researcher (PhD Eng), engineers (MSc), ergonomists (MSc) programmers and PhD students who are all dedicated to the continuous development of the EWD application. The candidate will work under the supervision of the lead researcher (on 3DS site) and professor Rachid Aissaoui from École de technologie supérieure (Montreal, CA). The candidate must hold a PhD in engineering, with expertise in robotic modeling or biomechanics or other related disciplines. Knowledge of human modeling, artificial intelligence or ergonomics is a considerable asset. The candidate must be able to conduct its research with relatively few guidance and must be fluent in English or French. The candidate must have recently published scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals in one of the above-mentioned fields of expertise.