Virtual Ergonomics analysis to validate product design

This paper presents an approach to evaluate product ergonomics using virtual humans. This work has been carried out to demonstrate that virtual humans are an important tool to improve virtual prototyping functionalities and, above all, to increase ergonomics and safety of products. A test methodology has been defined and several simulations have been made, varying anthropometry and workplace conditions. Two case studies that can demonstrate the validity of the approach are described. The first concerns instruments of a car for which the geometric model of the interior and a commercial virtual human have been used. The second case study concerns the external visibility of a farm tractor that can be equipped with different tools to accomplish to various tasks (e.g. harvesting and fruit picking). The results obtained are images that represent what the virtual human sees and permit to compare and validate different design solutions.