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In automotive industry, design of vehicle to end customer with proper ergonomics and balancing the design is always a challenge, for which an accurate prediction of postures are needed. Several studies have used Digital Human Models (DHM) to examine specific movements related to ingress and egress by translating complex tasks, like vehicle egress through DHMs. This requires an in-depth analysis of users to ensure such models reflect the range of abilities inherent to the population. Designers are increasingly using digital mock-ups of the built environment using DHMs as a means to reduce costs and speed-up the “time-to-market” of products. DHMs can help to improve the ergonomics of a product but must be representative of actual users.

Achieving comfortable Ingress-Egress (I/E) is a major ergonomic challenge for Occupant packaging engineers during vehicle design. Vehicles should be designed so that the targeted drivers are able to comfortably get in and out of it. Simulating occupant ingress/egress motion for vehicle involves many constraints and capturing actual behavior of human motion is cumbersome. In recent years, there are number of studies to investigate occupant ingress/egress motion and to understand perceived discomfort, influence of specific design parameters, age impact etc. These studies majorly used techniques like real time motion capturing in a vehicle mockup, comparison of joint torques developed during the ingress/egress motions etc., to identify the occupants discomfort aspects. This paper aims to capture the ingress/egress influencing parameters and incorporating the parameters in vehicle architecture layout during concept phase itself considering various anthropometric measurements.

In current scenario importance of fuel efficient vehicles, lesser emissions & energy efficiency are the major considerations for any vehicle manufacturer. To meet these expectations vehicle manufacturer are exploring alternate powertrains to reduce emissions and produce better fuel efficient vehicles. For any vehicle manufacturer component cost, weight and package volume are the major driving factors for success. This is even true for latest upcoming hybrid and electric vehicles as well. To gain advantage and introduce products faster, OEMs are inclined to electrify their existing platforms to compete with other manufacturers. To convert existing vehicles into hybrid vehicles, all the major components like e machine, High voltage battery, power electronics etc. needs to be carefully packaged along with existing components in the same package space.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), Extended Range Electric Vehicles (EREVs), Battery Electric Vehicles' (BEVs) development is gaining traction across all geographies to help meet ever increasing fuel economy regulations and as a pathway to offset concerns due to climate change and improve the overall green quotient of automobiles. These technologies have primarily shifted towards Li-ion batteries for Energy Storage (due to energy density and mass). In order to make actual business sense of these technologies, of which, battery is a major cost driver, it is necessary for these batteries to provide similar performance and life expectancy across the operating and soak (storage) range of the vehicles, as well as provide the requirements at a competitive cost.