A Layout Generation Algorithm for Unequal-Area Display and Control Console Considering Ergonomics

Abstract

This study addresses the problem of designing a display and control console layout under ergonomic principles via a mathematical approach. An integer programming model is established with objective functions comprising four ergonomic principles for designing the display and control console. Unlike the traditional design methods that consider equal-area devices, the new method addresses the general ergonomic console layout problem with unequal-area components. The presented approach evaluates the console in its entirety. Due to the NP-hardness of the problem, a modified multiobjective particle swarm algorithm is proposed. Compared with the manually layout console of the electric locomotive HXD3D, our proposed model achieves better results. The layout of most of the devices can embody ergonomic principles. It is convenient for designers that the proposed method can effectively produce many good layout schemes and evaluate the layout from an ergonomic perspective.

Keywords

• Integer programming
• human–machine interactive interface
• human factor