Ergonomic study for comfort operating the pedals of the agricultural tractors

Aging and feminization of farming population are a major burden on current agricultural sector, and some measures are demanding to adjust this trend. The agricultural mechanization has relieved farmers of most of the hard physical labor, but still work environments are poor, and there are a lot of harmful factors affecting human health. Therefore, improvement of safety and comfort in agricultural machinery is needed. In case of the most commonly used domestic agricultural machinery, agricultural tractors, operation device location and operating force are regulated by international rules such as ISO 4253, but the rule is not sufficient for domestic operators, since it was not developed for operator's comfort and was drawn out based on the westerners. In this study, we developed a technique that evaluates the conformability of tractor driving operation device for all Korean farmers including senior and women farmers. We also established evaluation equipments and inspection method of tractor operation conformability to promote dissemination of tractors that suit for Korean farmers' physique. In the future, the result allows tractor manufacturers to propose design guidelines for proper location and operating force of tractor operating device. It also allows domestic agriculture manufacturers to develop agricultural machinery that considered the conformability of farmers from the design stage.