Immersive ergonomic analysys of console elements in a tractor cabin

Ergonomic quality is becoming a crucial criteria for the success of many products. The problem of increasing the speed of product development cycles while keeping costs to a minimum could be solved by the possibility of the early evaluation of drafts regarding their ergonomic design. A digital platform is a prerequisite for the analysis of virtual prototypes. The analysis tool ERGONAUT not only fulfils this task in a Virtual Environment (VE) but also makes it possible to combine virtual and real data in a mixed mock-up. This implies that the designer is able to consider the ergonomic point of view at an early stage in the design process. In this context, a project together with the John Deere Company in Mannheim Germany has been carried out using such an analysis tool in a pilot project. Within this first semi-productive industrial project ERGONAUT has shown its usefulness. It will help John Deere gain and maintain a long-term leading position in the field of ergonomics and facilitate the integration of VEs in their product development. This paper describes basic features of ERGONAUT; its structure and functionality, the different levels of use in the pilot project, the system (User Interface, VE system, etc.) and the results of the console analyses.