Enhancing Vehicle Ingress/Egress Ergonomics with Digital Human Models

The ease of getting in and out of a vehicle (or ingress/egress) is one of the most important ergonomic issues for automotive manufacturers. It represents the first physical contact of a customer with a vehicle. A pleasant sensation while interfacing with the vehicle plays a vital role in vehicle purchasing decisions. Understanding and being able to assess vehicle ingress/egress performance early in a design process is therefore critical to a successful vehicle design. Conventional method relies on clinic research with physical bucks, which is a time consuming and pure subjective process. A new hardware-in-the-loop motion analysis system has been developed, which uses the latest motion capture, biomechanical and digital human modelling technologies to capture and analyse human motions as the driver or passenger interacts with a vehicle. The design assessment is provided in both subjective ratings and, for the first time, the physical data (e.g., swept volumes in CAD). The use of the system avoids costly seating buck builds and reduces engineering time and cost associated with both buck build and conducting the tests. Most importantly, it enables engineers to assess a vehicle’s ingress/egress performances early in its design process, which will lead to better vehicle packages and better customer satisfaction.