Analysis of Driver Knee Contours for Vehicle Interior Design

Abstract

An analysis of knee contours was conducted to provide design guidelines to prevent inadvertent actuation of switches located in the lower part of the driver compartment. A programmatic analysis of 3D laser scan data from 181 men and women was conducted. The results quantified the maximum level of penetration into a circular opening that could be expected. The maximum penetration was generally observed in the lateral patella area. A statistical model of the data was used to generate plots of the distributions of penetrations that would be observed for circular holes of various size. A verification study was conducted using manual measurements on a convenience sample of 42 people. The results of the manual measurements were generally consistent with the programmatic measurements from 3D scans, with discrepancies typically less than 3 mm for holes up to 50 mm.