Högskolan i Skövde

The car interior is a complex man–machine interface. Poor interior design contributes to traffic accidents as well as discomfort and disorders in professional and long distance drivers. When buying a car comfort is for many customers an important factor. Consequently, car interior comfort besides safety is of great importance when designing cars. Comfort is a subjective feeling and hard to model mathematically. The aim of this paper is to show the feasibility with fuzzy logics to model relations between human perception, human characteristics and workplace structure. A model where drivers’ perceived comfort when handling interior controls is in relation to anthropometrics and control positions are used as illustration. A series of control reach studies in simulated car driving was used for the development of a comfort model. Combined with a human simulation program the comfort model may be used by car designers at an early stage of the design process for evaluation of design concepts aiming at reachable and manageable controls in a safe and comfortable interior. The comfort model illustrates that fuzzy logics provides a constructive way of turning qualities into mathematics.

Relevance to industry: Fuzzy logics provide the opportunity to model physical parameters from the human and the technical system together with human perceptions. Such model can be combined for instance with human simulation tool and reduce ergonomic tests in real physical environments.