Crew Station Design Tool

Modeling and simulation have become an integral part of the engineering process and, through DoD initiatives like Simulation-Based Acquisition, are likely to assume an even greater role in the years ahead. The increasing complexity of weapons systems,coupled with budget pressure and manpower limitations, has fostered a deep and sincere appreciation for ensuring that the soldiers will be able to effectively and efficiently operate, maintain and support new systems when they are fielded. This has fueledthe hunger for Design Visualization techniques and tools.This proposal describes a specific process that capitalizes on previous work performed in the human factors industry and combines this work to provide an innovative and uniquely powerful designvisualization tool. This design visualization tool would provide a method through which controls and displays would be positioned in a work station in a manner that optimizes the crewmember's ability to perform their work. This technique involvesfunction and task analysis, integration of human factors standards and guidelines, as well as workload analysis modeling and human figure modeling. This product will assist designers in developing layout of the controls and displays in any system thatincludes human components, so long as constructive representations of the system and environment exist or can be developed. Examples include: nuclear power plants, air traffic control, air- and space-craft, space mission control, metropolitan emergencymanagement, and police command and control units.