Analysis of Automotive Control Pedals Ergonomics through Mathematical Modelling Based on Human Anthropometry

Sahil Garg; Sujit Bhide; Shashank Gupta

doi:10.4271/2017-26-0252

Vehicle Ergonomics is one of the most vital factor to be considered in vehicle design and development, as the customer wants a comfortable and performance oriented vehicle. An uncomfortable driving posture can lead to painful driving experiences for longer hauls. The control pedals viz. Accelerator, Brake and clutch pedal (ABC Pedals), are the most frequently used parts in the vehicle, their proper positioning with respect to human anthropology is of prime importance, from driver comfort viewpoint.

The methodology currently used for optimizing ergonomics with respect to the positioning of pedals in a vehicle included; measuring anthropometric angles manually with the help of H-Point Machine, subjective jury analysis and through software like RAMSIS, JACK, etc. Manual measurement doesn’t give the flexibility of iterations for optimization. The subjective analysis is based on insinuations thereby, cannot be standardized. Limitation of RAMSIS or JACK is that it doesn’t steers the users towards the optimized values.

This paper works as resolution for the placement of the best possible ABC pedal positioning and its orientation in the known packaging constraints based on targeted percentile population. It is an endeavor for the embodiment of pedal ergonomics which up till now is considered to be subjective. “Pedal_Ergo_Model”, works in integration with the vehicle H-point, the human anthropometric data and the comfortable ergonomic angles with respect to to legs and the sitting posture in an automobile. It considers the selection of anthropometric data of geographical area for targeted vehicle market. Reference from various other researches, defines the range of human comfort angles for driving conditions in perspective to ABC pedals.

As the model gives simulated variations in XY, YZ and ZX planes, it assists the designing teams to iterate the pedal positions within the available packaging environment and can achieve the best possible solution as per their requirement.

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Analysis of Automotive Control Pedals Ergonomics through Mathematical Modelling Based on Human Anthropometry 2017-26-0252

SAE MOBILUS