Consideration of anthropometric diversity

Licentiate thesis, 2012

Ergonomics and Human Factors address factors important to consider in the product and production development process. This is done through a User Centred Design process where focus is put on human-machine interactions. Digital human modelling (DHM) tools provide and facilitate rapid simulations, visualisations and analyses of the human-machine interactions in a virtual environment. Anthropometry, the study of human measurements, is central in DHM simulations due to the necessity of ensuring intended accommodation levels. Several methods have been described to consider the anthropometric diversity that exists within human populations. Still, many simulations are done with few human models, so called manikins, in industry today due to the time consuming processes when working with many manikins in current DHM tools. Hence, there is a need for better tools and methods. To increase the understanding among DHM users there is also a need to illustrate differences in results when using different approaches, and to evaluate the validity of the assumptions that methods for anthropometric diversity consideration are based upon. In this thesis current methods for anthropometric diversity considerations have been reviewed and the differences in evaluation results when utilizing different approaches have been analysed. New methods and functionality have been developed and implemented in DHM tools and the possibilities to include more physical characteristics and in turn consider more aspects of human diversity have been explored. Results shows that the proposed methods are advantageous compared to approaches often used in industry today and will, if used, increase the consideration of anthropometric diversity when using DHM tools for the design of products and workplaces.