Ergonomic improvements of armored personnel carrier by using digital human modeling tools

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) by using Digital Human Modeling (DHM) tools in order to identify ergonomic problems. Background: Ergonomic evaluation is especially important in designing tactical military vehicles, since the operator will experience significantly high cognitive and physical workloads while he/she controls the vehicle in combat situations. Although human factors standards, including MIL STD-1472, provide guidance for military vehicle design, it is not always possible to directly apply these standards to designing Korean military vehicles (e.g., due to demographic differences). In the design process, the use of DHM provides many benefits including reduced development cost and quantitative ergonomic design evaluation. This study suggests some improvements based on the ergonomic evaluations by using DHM tools and ergonomics checklists. Method: The APC was evaluated by using DHM tools (RAMSIS™ and 3D SSPP™) in terms of physical workload in ingress/egress, visibility, clearance, and reachability. For control panel evaluation, checklists based on ergonomics guidelines were used. Conclusion: The improvements in multiple aspects of APC are main results of this study and they are expected to be widely used in the development of next tactical military vehicles. Application: The results could be used in establishing military guidelines for ergonomic military vehicle design suitable for Korean soldiers. The suggested improvements would relieve APC