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RICCARDO KARIM KHAMAISI

Dottorando
Dipartimento di Ingegneria "Enzo Ferrari"

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Pubblicazioni

2024 - Human-Centric Design of Automated Production Lines Using Virtual Reality Tools and Human Data Analysis [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Grandi, F.; Khamaisi, R. K.; Morganti, A.; Peruzzini, M.; Pellicciari, M.
abstract

The 4.0 revolution is leading to increasingly automated, flexible, and intelligent manufacturing systems that require greater complexity to manage during maintenance and process control. In this context the optimization of the human-machine interaction plays a crucial important role in the design of modern industrial systems. Virtual Reality (VR) offers realistic simulation environments where users can be involved to replicate specific human tasks, detecting and solving problems before they occur. The paper proposes a human-centric digital design methodology that integrates VR technologies with human data analysis tools to support the design or redesign of complex industrial systems. Different wearable devices have been used to collect data about physical and mental user conditions to provide an early assessment of the operators’ workload, while comparing different design solutions into the virtual space. An industrial use case related to the redesign of packaging automated machines was used to validate the proposed method and tools: a preliminary correlation between physiological parameters and machines interactions was found.

2023 - An AR Tool to Support Warehouse Operations in the Context of Industry 4.0 [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Casciotta, E.; Khamaisi, R. K.; Raffaeli, R.; Peruzzini, M.
abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the leading technologies of the Industry 4.0 revolution, offering innovative interfaces to promote the diffusion of digital contents into industrial processes, thanks to flexible and robust solutions and cost-effective devices. In this context, this paper explores the adoption of AR in industrial logistics where several open issues still discourage its effective use in everyday scenarios. After a review of objectives, approaches and technics of AR integration in logistics operations, the paper presents a framework to identify goods in a warehouse, retrieve data relative to the package, display info to the user to drive operations. The approach aims at easing and speeding up the activity of the warehouseman to identify goods, check the relative information and to put each good on the correct shelf. A prototypal application was developed within the Unity platform and integrated with the company ERP system to manage data on the products and retrieve images of the identification labels. A real use case involving a primary company producing agricultural tractors is proposed to test usability of the prototype. Results showed that the developed application allows relevant benefits in terms of process effectiveness, error prevention, aiming at reducing the operator mental workload.

2023 - Masticatory Functionality in Post-Acute-COVID-Syndrome (PACS) Patients with and without Sarcopenia [Articolo su rivista]
Pugliese, BRUNO DAVIDE; Garuti, Giovanna; Bergamini, Lucia; Khamaisi, RICCARDO KARIM; Guaraldi, Giovanni; Consolo, Ugo; Bellini, Pierantonio
abstract

Musculoskeletal symptoms are common in both acute COVID-19 disease and post-acute sequelae (Post-Acute COVID Syndrome). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are reduced levels of masticatory function in patients with PACS (Post Acute COVID Syndrome) who suffer from sarcopenia, under the hypothesis that the latter may also involve the masticatory muscles. This study includes 23 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 between February 2020 and April 2021 and currently suffering from PACS. Among these PACS patients, 13/23 (56%) suffer from sarcopenia, 5/23 (22%) complain of asthenia but do not suffer from sarcopenia and the remaining 5/23 (22%) do not present muscle symptoms (non-asthenic non-sarcopenic). Oral health indices of all patients were collected. The masticatory strength was assessed with a gnathodynamometer based on piezoresistive sensors, and the masticatory effectiveness was measured by administering the “chewing gum mixing ability test” by having patients perform 20 masticatory cycles on a two-color chewing gum and analyzing the outcome through the ViewGum© software. Moreover, we gathered data with a hand grip test and gait speed test. The data collected in this study show that PACS sarcopenic patients have decreased masticatory effectiveness and strength compared to PACS asthenic non-sarcopenic patients and PACS non-asthenic non-sarcopenic patients.

2022 - A comprehensive UX index to evaluate industrial tasks from a human-centered perspective [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Khamaisi, R. K.; Grandi, F.; Prati, E.; Peruzzini, M.; Pellicciari, M.
abstract

Recent advances in physiological monitoring devices have supported the diffusion of a human-centric approach also within industrial contexts, where often severe working conditions limit the analysis of the operators’ User eXperience (UX). Several methodologies have been presented to the scientific community to assess the overall UX of workers performing industrial operations. These methodologies have also tried to encompass the diverse aspects of the physiological response (e.g., mental workload, stress conditions and postural overloads). The current study aims to refine a unique and comprehensive UX index to identify the specific causes of the user discomfort in advance and to optimize the overall system design. A full set of non-invasive wearable devices was applied to a virtual reality (VR) simulation while performing manual operations to collect relevant physiological parameters and to finally assess the overall UX. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed index in anticipating the operator's critical conditions by specifying the possible causes of the ergonomic discomfort. Future works will focus on investigating the theoretical foundation of proposed solution and on providing a statistical validation on a larger population.

2022 - Digital Technologies to Redesign Automatic Machines with a Human-Centric Approach: Application in Industry [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Grandi, Fabio; Peruzzini, Margherita; Khamaisi, Riccardo Karim; Lettori, Jacopo; Pellicciari, Marcello
abstract

Human factors integration is definitely a transdisciplinary and urgent matter in modern factories. Despite the great surge in factory automation in recent years, human-machine interaction is still a crucial aspect and companies need to take care of the workers' wellbeing and performance to enhance the overall system quality and productivity. Nevertheless, ergonomics is poorly considered during the design of complex industrial systems, such as automatic machinery, especially for the lack of practical methodologies and guidelines to promote human factors from the early stages of design or redesign. To overcome this issue, this work proposes a transdisciplinary approach to redesign automatic machinery in compliance with factory ergonomics, using a combination of digital technologies (e.g., digital human simulation, human physiological data monitoring). The paper defines a structure method and related tools to apply a human-centric approach to industrial cases and their validation of a real case, concerning the redesign of a packaging automatic machine. Results show how the proposed approach is useful to detect possible ergonomic issues at the shop floor, identifying in advance risky situations for the operators during operating or maintenance tasks, and leading to an optimized machine able to enhance the workers’ wellbeing and factory productivity at the same time.

2022 - UX assessment strategy to identify potential stressful conditions for workers [Articolo su rivista]
Khamaisi, R. K.; Brunzini, A.; Grandi, F.; Peruzzini, M.; Pellicciari, M.
abstract

The European Commission defined the new concept of Industry 5.0 meaning a more human-centric, resilient, and sustainable approach for the design of industrial systems and operations. A deep understanding of the work environment and organization is important to start analysing the working conditions and the resulting User eXperience (UX) of the operators. Also, the knowledge about users’ needs and ergonomics is fundamental to optimize the workers’ wellbeing, working conditions, and industrial results. In this context, the paper presents a strategy to effectively assess the UX of workers to promote human-centric vision of manufacturing sites, enhancing the overall sustainability of the modern factories. A set of non-invasive wearable devices is used to monitor human activities and collect physiological parameters, as well as questionnaires to gather subjective self-assessment. This set-up was applied to virtual reality (VR) simulation, replicating heavy duty work sequence tasks that took place in an oil and gas pipes manufacturing site. This approach allowed the identification of possible stressful conditions for the operator, from physical and mental perspectives, which may compromise the performance. This research was funded by the European Community's HORIZON 2020 programme under grant agreement No. 958303 (PENELOPE).

2021 - A Reference Framework to Combine Model-Based Design and AR to Improve Social Sustainability [Articolo su rivista]
Grandi, Fabio; Khamaisi, Riccardo Karim; Peruzzini, Margherita; Raffaeli, Roberto; Pellicciari, Marcello
abstract

Product and process digitalization is pervading numerous areas in the industry to improve quality and reduce costs. In particular, digital models enable virtual simulations to predict product and process performances, as well as to generate digital contents to improve the general workflow. Digital models can also contain additional contents (e.g., model-based design (MBD)) to provide online and on-time information about process operations and management, as well as to support operator activities. The recent developments in augmented reality (AR) offer new specific interfaces to promote the great diffusion of digital contents into industrial processes, thanks to flexible and robust applications, as well as cost-effective devices. However, the impact of AR applications on sustainability is still poorly explored in research. In this direction, this paper proposed an innovative approach to exploit MBD and introduce AR interfaces in the industry to support human intensive processes. Indeed, in those processes, the human contribution is still crucial to guaranteeing the expected product quality (e.g., quality inspection). The paper also analyzed how this new concept can benefit sustainability and define a set of metrics to assess the positive impact on sustainability, focusing on social aspects.

2021 - A preliminary experimental study on the workers’ workload assessment to design industrial products and processes [Articolo su rivista]
Brunzini, A.; Peruzzini, M.; Grandi, F.; Khamaisi, R. K.; Pellicciari, M.
abstract

The human‐centered design (HCD) approach places humans at the center of design in order to improve both products and processes, and to give users an effective, efficient and satisfy-ing interactive experience. In industrial design and engineering, HCD is very useful in helping to achieve the novel Industry 5.0 concept, based on improving workers’ wellbeing by providing prosperity beyond jobs and growth, while respecting the production limits of the planet as recently promoted by the European Commission. In this context, the paper proposes an ergonomic assessment method based on the analysis of the workers’ workload to support the design of industrial products and processes. This allows the simultaneous analysis of the physical and cognitive workload of operators while performing their tasks during their shift. The method uses a minimum set of non‐invasive wearable devices to monitor human activity and physiological parameters, in addition to questionnaires for subjective self‐assessment. The method has been preliminarily tested on a real industrial case in order to demonstrate how it can help companies to support the design of optimized products and processes promoting the workers’ wellbeing.

2021 - Preliminary validation of a low-cost motion analysis system based on rgb cameras to support the evaluation of postural risk assessment [Articolo su rivista]
Agostinelli, T.; Generosi, A.; Ceccacci, S.; Khamaisi, R. K.; Peruzzini, M.; Mengoni, M.
abstract

This paper introduces a low-cost and low computational marker-less motion capture system based on the acquisition of frame images through standard RGB cameras. It exploits the open-source deep learning model CMU, from the tf-pose-estimation project. Its numerical accuracy and its usefulness for ergonomic assessment are evaluated by a proper experiment, designed and per-formed to: (1) compare the data provided by it with those collected from a motion capture golden standard system; (2) compare the RULA scores obtained with data provided by it with those obtained with data provided by the Vicon Nexus system and those estimated through video analysis, by a team of three expert ergonomists. Tests have been conducted in standardized laboratory conditions and involved a total of six subjects. Results suggest that the proposed system can predict angles with good consistency and give evidence about the tool’s usefulness for ergonomist.

2021 - Ux in ar-supported industrial human–robot collaborative tasks: A systematic review [Articolo su rivista]
Khamaisi, R. K.; Prati, E.; Peruzzini, M.; Raffaeli, R.; Pellicciari, M.
abstract

The fourth industrial revolution is promoting the Operator 4.0 paradigm, originating from a renovated attention towards human factors, growingly involved in the design of modern, human-centered processes. New technologies, such as augmented reality or collaborative robotics are thus increasingly studied and progressively applied to solve the modern operators’ needs. Human-centered design approaches can help to identify user’s needs and functional requirements, solving usability issues, or reducing cognitive or physical stress. The paper reviews the recent literature on augmented reality-supported collaborative robotics from a human-centered perspective. To this end, the study analyzed 21 papers selected after a quality assessment procedure and remarks the poor adoption of user-centered approaches and methodologies to drive the development of human-centered augmented reality applications to promote an efficient collaboration between humans and robots. To remedy this deficiency, the paper ultimately proposes a structured framework driven by User eXperience approaches to design augmented reality interfaces by encompassing previous research works. Future developments are discussed, stimulating fruitful reflections and a decisive standardization process.