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Virtual assessment of an occupant postural ergonomics has become an essential part of vehicle development process. To design vehicle for different market is one of the primary reason for manufacturers using digital tools to address the specific needs of the target market including cultural background, road and traffic conditions. RAMSIS is a widely used software for creating digital human models (DHM) of different target population which allows manufacturers to assess design with unique customer requirements in product design. Defining these requirements with RAMSIS human module helped development team to accurately define occupant targets such as occupant space, visibility and reachability etc. Occupant behavior and usage scenario are factors which are unique to target market and they influence the occupant posture and usage pattern inside the vehicle. This paper defines the methodology towards the development of Indian Digital Simulation model for vehicle ergonomic evaluations.

Recent trends in vehicle occupant protection have led to renewed interest in the perception of Roominess such as headroom, shoulder room and foot room etc. Occupants head room in vehicles is currently measured using tools, procedures and definitions described in SAE J1052 and J1100. “Head Position Contours” defined in SAE J1052 are useful in establishing accommodation requirements for head space [1]. With respect to the Indian Anthropometry database, the head position contour as per SAE J1052 will not be appropriate with Indian population. With this objective in mind a head movement envelope is generated using the software - RAMSIS Digital manikin. RAMSIS is widely used by Automobile Manufacturers for Digital Human Modeling. The head movement envelope is a collation of different movements of head during driving condition.

Transportation system is at the brink of revolution and many new ways of mobility are arising in the market to ease the pressure on the established transportation infrastructure. Many companies and governments around the world are exploring innovative options in the space of shared mobility to reduce the overall carbon footprint. To expedite the adoption of shared mobility in India, it is necessary to make such options comfortable and cost-effective. One of the most effective way to make shared mobility options cost effective is to comfortably increase occupancy per vehicle footprint. This paper aims to evaluate a novel method of occupant seating to identify the maximum number of passengers a vehicle can accommodate without significant impact on occupant comfort. It is assumed that shared mobility options are used for a short duration of commute, and hence the comfort of the seat can be marginally compromised to increase the total number of occupants.

Traffic awareness of the driver is one of the prime focus in terms of pedestrian and road safety. Driver experience plays a significant role and driving requires careful attention to changing environments both within and outside the vehicle. Any lapse in driver attention from the primary task of driving could potentially lead to an accident. It is observed that, lack of attention on the ongoing traffic and ignorant about the traffic information such as traffic lights, road signs, traffic rules and regulations are major cause for the vehicle crash. Traffic signals & signage are the most appropriate choice of traffic control for the intersection, it is important to ensure that driver can see the information far away from the intersection so that he/she can stop safely upon viewing the yellow and red display. Then, upon viewing the signal operations and conditions the motorist can stop his/her vehicle successfully before entering the intersection.

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.

Infotainment screens have become critical interface between occupant and Vehicle. Historical development of In-vehicle infotainment (IVI) has shown us the growth of interface size and usability is tremendously increased. The basic small segmented displays of past decades have transformed into large touch screen interface [1]. Earlier small screen interfaces had minimal information and less driver assist functions. It was mainly entertainment based information, which does not require much attention from driver. But recently it has changed from glancing the screen to seeing the screen, due to increased driver assist functions like GPS navigation etc. The amount of information displayed is also increased tremendously [2]. This scenario demands that the infotainment screen positioning inside the vehicle should be free from any visual obscuration, reflection and direct illumination on the infotainment screen due to ambient lighting.

Digital human models (DHM) have greatly enhanced design for the automotive environment. The major advantage of the DHMs today is their ability to quickly test a broad range of the population within specific design parameters. The need to create expensive prototypes and run time consuming clinics can be significantly reduced. However, while the anthropometric databases within these models are comprehensive, the ability to position the manikin’s posture is limited and needs lot of optimization. This study enhances the occupant postures and their seating positions, in all instances the occupant was instructed to adjust to the vehicle parameters so they were in their most comfortable position. While all the Occupants are accommodated to their respective positions which finally can be stacked up for space assessments. This paper aims at simulating those scenarios for different percentiles / population which will further aid in decision making for critical parameters.