Using digital human modeling to predict operator performance of a compact rescue crawler

Fluid power systems are used extensively nowadays due to their favorable characteristics. Recently, there are efforts to apply fluid power to a compact rescue crawler. Due to the nature of the rescue robot, it is very critical to study the operator performance using this new robot. To avoid costly mockups and prototypes, human performance modeling tools were used in this research. Digital humans as well as the compact rescue crawler were developed using Jack®. An empirical study was conducted using those models to investigate the impact of task types on operator performance and results revealed that task types have a significant effect on all three of the human joint angles that were used to predict the operator performance. It indicates that the digital human modeling was effective in predicting rescue robot operator performance.