Abstract
A great deal of military equipment is ill-fitting, uncomfortable, and difficult to learn to use, operate, and maintain. For example, Soldiers report difficulty during vehicle egress and ingress, as well as pain, fatigue and discomfort from vehicle vibration, seats, restraint systems, and the sheer weight of their equipment load. They also report that mission critical systems are located outside their reach and field of view. Clearly, systems exhibiting these characteristics have not benefited from the incorporation of human factors/ergonomics or human system integration during their design and development. The panel, which is comprised of multidisciplinary practitioners and researchers from the Army Research Laboratory, discusses tools, techniques, and test environments that they have used to study the effects of military equipment on Soldier performance. The overall goal of this panel is to highlight a variety of methods and facilities that they have found useful and effective early in the design process before software is coded and metal bent. These panelists have had previous experience in industry, academia, and working with military services other than the Army, and will draw from their varied areas of expertise in cognition and biomechanics to reveal critical factors and insights that are generalizable across a wide range of products and industry sectors as well as those that warrant further investigation.
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