Ergonomic simulation in automated vehicles using RAMSIS

The ergonomic design of future automated vehicles has to take the new role of occupants as part-time driver and passenger into account. Driving assistant systems will allow an increasing number of non-driving related activities. To support this variability, new concepts for human-machine-interactions and vehicle interiors have to be developed. Since decades the ergonomic tool RAMSIS is applied for designing conventional vehicle concepts with respect to various ergonomic criteria. The tool is optimized to evaluate vehicle designs according to manual driver activities. To apply this tool for automated driving concepts, the relevant occupant behavior simulation capabilities have to be developed. Hence the research project INSAA was conducted to extend and validate the RAMSIS posture prediction for non-driving related activities. During the project a wide range of posture data were collected in extensive experiments and integrated in new posture models and methods. The project results have been integrated into the commercial RAMSIS software product to support the ergonomic design of automated vehicles in various use cases like seat position, spatial requirement, visibility and passive safety.

The commercial ergonomic tool RAMSIS is currently used worldwide by many car, truck, airplane and industrial vehicle manufactures in their development processes. Today automatization is a huge technical challenge for which vehicle manufactures have to find the right answer. This paper presents new digital tools ready to support the implementation of automatization in mobility.