ERGONAUT:: A tool for ergonomic analyses in virtual environments

Ergonomic quality is becoming a crucial criterium 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 fulfills 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 carded 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 companies 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 the anthropomebric basis for ERGONAUT, its structure and functionality, the different levels of use, the system (User Interface, VE system, etc.) and some experience of the use of ERGONAUT.