Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
this industry must respond are, in fact, constantly evolving:
the user requirements in terms of ethics, performance and
safety can now be met, and their demand is now based on
other criteria including comfort of use of a vehicle or ease of
getting in or out [WEG 07]. The role of ergonomics in the
design stage has thus become essential. Until recently,
ergonomic assessments used large physical models and were
based on the expertise of ergonomists and the feelings of a
rather large panel of testers. The freedom with which
ergonomists had to develop was, therefore, limited by time
and cost of manufacture or prototypes and by the fact that
they were involved in the final stages of development, once
the design had been validated. The successful integration of
ergonomic measures earlier in the design process involves
making the analysis and traditional computer-assisted
design tools consistent, which require the development of
human numerical models close to reality, capable of
interacting with a virtual environment, and assessing
the quality of this environment. These models, which are
capable of taking on the roles of pilots, passengers or
maintenance operators, are particularly used to assessing
the field of vision, the volume of traffic or even the
discomfort caused by the execution of a given task.
Figure 1.9.
Illustration of human models. a) Ramsis
(http://www.dhergo.org/) and b) Jack (Siemens Technomatix)
