Modeling Vehicle Ingress and Egress Using the Human Motion Simulation Framework

The ease of getting into and out of passenger cars and light trucks is a critical component of customer acceptance and product differentiation. In commercial vehicles, the health and safety of drivers is affected by the design of the steps and handholds they use to get into and out of the cab. Ingress/egress assessment appears to represent a substantial application opportunity for digital human models. The complexity of the design space and the range of possible biomechanical and subjective measures of interest mean that developing useful empirical models is difficult, requiring large-scale subject testing with physical mockups. Yet, ingress and egress motions are complex and strongly affected by the geometric constraints and driver attributes, posing substantial challenges in creating meaningful simulations using figure models. Previous approaches to simulating ingress and egress have focused on the modification of stored motions from laboratory studies to achieve complex motion simulations. This paper presents a new approach using the Human Motion Simulation Framework, an integrated, modular, hierarchical system designed to provide flexible control for simulating both common and novel movements in any human figure model.