Design Factors for the Location and Arrangement of Control Actuators

Abstract

Location and arrangement of control actuators have a significant impact on operation safety and efficiency. In order to benefit from the proper location and arrangement of control actuators, a large amount of factors need to be considered in the design process. In this paper, three types of main design factors were summarized through literature research, including operators physical characteristics, task operation properties and control actuators features. Meanwhile, the priority of these factors (detailed in indexes) were determined by questionnaire investigation. The results showed that the top priority indexes were anthropometric dimensions, limbs reachable area, comfortable area, operation accuracy, visual checking, avoiding interference, friction, the control actuators type of hand and foot manipulate, the control actuators functions of on/off or start/stop, safety or emergency device, importance of control actuators, and operator habits.