Advances in computer-aided design have revolutionized car making, but there is one area where simulations fall short.
That’s in online crash-test simulations, which are improving but don’t provide the same real-world data that testing on cadavers and dummies consistently offer to safety researchers in Detroit.
Risa Scherer, an Anthropomorphic Test Device Technical Specialist for Ford Motor Co., said “digital dummies” may replace the real thing–eventually.
“Technology hasn’t advanced that far to do that,” said Scherer, who also is North American region chairwoman for the WorldSID (side-impact dummy program).
“Right now, I have a technology issue where I can only have front-impact and side-impact dummies [separately]; I can’t even make an omni-directional piece of hardware, let alone software to support it. Plus, we also haven’t gotten acceptance from regulating bodies that we can certify our vehicles based on a computer model only.”
But while Detroit is working on a new generation of smart dummies, NASA and the military are using digital representations of the human anatomy.
NASA’s technology transfer program, along with Dynoverse Corp. of Woodlands, Texas, is developing a “virtual human” in its Virtual Interactive Anatomy program to provide a better model for spacesuits.
“The reason for NASA’s interest is the evolution of the astronaut program itself,” Robert Rice, founder and chief executive of Dynoverse, told a recent SAE meeting in Detroit. “Back in the 1970s, when today’s suit was developed, the astronauts were all uniquely male, uniquely military and a uniquely consistent height, weight and physique.”
Now spacesuits must serve astronauts who are diverse by gender and ethnic origin as well as required to perform more complex and nimble tasks, such as repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.
The National Library of Medicine, with its Visible Human Project ongoing since 1985, and the U.S. Air Force, whose Caesar Project is developing a new flight suit, also are looking to create a three-dimensional human being on computer.
“The anthropomorphic data tables that are currently available and frequently used are referencing American man and woman, post-Korean War, and we certainly changed a lot since then. We’ve become couch potatoes, we live longer and so a lot of things have moved on to impact the anthropology spectrum of the global population,” Rice said.
“On a timeline, the Virtual Human Project came first, Caesar was launched totally independently and then I came along and incorporated both into my work,” Rice said.
NASA and Dynoverse tapped an unusual source for three-dimensional modeling of its Virtual Interactive Anatomy program. The body of a Texas death row inmate, who donated it to science, was frozen after his execution and sectioned into 1,877 slices.
Each slice was then photographed, studied and rendered digitally to re-create the man on computer in three-dimensional form. This allows Rice to re-create how living body parts react to various situations, such as a crash.
The results of NASA’s Virtual Interactive Anatomy, the Air Force’s Caesar project and the National Library of Medicine’s Visible Human Project also have applications in the commercial and retail worlds.
The Air Force, for example, asked corporations such as automakers, Levi’s and Lee jeans, Jantzen swimwear, lingerie and seating and airplane makers to help fund the Caesar project in exchange for the data derived, Rice said.
