Ergonomic Design of Camera-Monitor Systems in Heavy Commercial Vehicles

Abstract

To fulfill the transportation task the driver has to steer the commercial vehicle through a challenging transport infrastructure. The driver-related vision issues, particularly the indirect vision to monitor vehicle behavior during dynamic vision situations are of particular importance. The main requirements of the haulage contractor, when making the decision to buy a new vehicle, are a cost-effective, fast and flexible transportation of goods. When designing commercial vehicles all requirements are to be considered. Caused by the potential for fuel savings and the technology-related benefits for the truck drivers, it is of interest to replace conventional mirror systems of a commercial vehicle with camera-monitor systems (CMS). The electronic vision system is directly involved in the dynamic viewing interaction between driver, vehicle and environment and therefore needs to be designed according to ergonomic methods. The findings of the analysis of dynamic vision situations are used for the ergonomic design of a camera-monitor system (CMS). The viewing angle-dependent image quality of the monitors is taken into consideration for the display adjustment depending on the dynamic eye point positions. The automated adaptation of the shown dynamic fields of vision is implemented through a truck-trailer angle dependent panning characteristic of the CMS. Thus, the fuel saving advanced vision system is adapted to the ergonomic needs of truck drivers.