A new digital human environment and assessment of vehicle interior design

Vehicle interior design directly relates to driver performance measures such as comfort, efficiency, risk of injury, and vehicle safety. A digital human is a convenient tool for satisfying the need to reduce the design cycle in order to save time and money. This paper presents a digital human environment, SantosTM, developed at The University of Iowa, and its assessment as applied to the interior design of a Caterpillar vehicle. The digital human environment involves male models and accommodates a large percentage of the operator population (from the 5th percentile to the 95th percentile). It has a user-friendly interface and includes various tools such as posture prediction, reachability check, zone differentiation, and biomechanics assessment for the upper body and hand. The key difference from a traditional digital human environment is that Santos’s environment is optimization-based. This can answer design questions regarding whether the operator can reach relevant controls, wha...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: CAD
• Authors: Jingzhou Yang, Joo H. Kim, Karim Abdel-Malek, Timothy Marler, Steven Beck, Gregory R. Kopp
• Keywords: CAD 2007, Digital Human Environment, Interior Design, Theoretical Computer Science, Vehicle Interior Design