Ergonomics For Product Design And Automation Applications

With the development of science and technology, increasing global economic integration, rapid and innovative product design has been catching attention increasingly. Industrial design is a synthesized programming activity. The aim of design is for human but not for product. So modern industrial design must insist on human-centered design idea and focus on research of harmonious relationship between object and human. Ergonomics provides the basic theory and techniques in order to satisfy the human-centered design purpose and is the necessary rules in design activities. Ergonomics promotes a holistic approach in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance in which considerations of physical, cognitive, social, organizational, environmental and other relevant factors are taken into account.The thesis offers an overall definition of ergonomics and description of the relationship between ergonomics and industrial design. Ergonomics oriented to different phases of product design is proposed. Existing computer aided ergonomics design software are presented, such as JACK, SAMMEE, SAFE WORK etc..In this thesis a new design principle for product design automatization is proposed: Life-Originated-Design (LORD), in which human being, the living system with highest intelligence, is considered as prototypes of product for their functions, needs, information, structure and process. It is the result of a new theoretical investigation for top-down product design based on the origin and process of product form nature and society.Digital manikin provides an important method for CAED. H-anim standard for human modeling and Java technology is studied. A digital human model of some reality is established. Working postures and visual analysis of the digital manikin is studied also. A framework of digital ergonomics based on H-anim and DARFAD software is presented.At last, ergonomical principles and LORD theories are applied into a virtual training system design for laparoscopic surgery which is composed of both software and hardware.