SYSTRA, a global engineering firm specializing in transportation such as urban rail systems, recently wrote about why they love using Santos® to optimize train cab designs. Their post includes an overview of Digital Human Modeling and features in-game video of predictive posturing.

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It is always fascinating to see how engineers use Santos Pro™ to design products using our predictive digital human model. How do you use Santos®? Let us know! We would love to feature your work so others can see the vast capabilities and cost savings our technology brings to human-centric product development.

The world’s oldest motorcycle manufacturer and producer of the longest-lived motorcycle design in history, Royal Enfield, a unit of Eicher Motors Ltd., is adding the use of SantosHuman Inc.’s predictive digital human models to their design processes.

“We started working with Royal Enfield in 2019, when the focus was on hand-operated switch gear,” said Steve Beck, CEO of SantosHuman Inc. “We are now helping them broaden the use of Santos Pro to include designing for a variety of critical motorcycle rider tasks.”

“Our design and engineering teams are endeavoring to make Royal Enfield bikes the most human friendly motorcycles available and the most suitable for all our customers’ comfort and performance,” said Adrian Marshall, Computer-Aided Design Manager, Royal Enfield. “We also wanted to help provide the additional ability to reduce post-concept rider-centric design changes and provide additional confidence to project gate decisions using advanced simulation. That means we explore tools that enable designing for the rider from the ground up and bring human factors into the design process earlier.”

According to Beck, “Most of the design tools in any OEM’s toolkit focus on manufacturability.” As a result, current product development processes must rely on mature designs to gauge how well products meet operator requirements. The physical prototypes required for these types of evaluations are often not available until after production begins.

Royal Enfield serves one of the largest motorcycle markets in the world, which means their daily production numbers are staggering. Having the improved ability to identify and rectify any potential human-centric design issues well ahead of prototype and final production provides the opportunity to avoid late changes and save on overall development costs.

“Market acceptance issues can occur in any consumer product, and that information is useful to have sooner rather than later. Santos® Pro provides fast-forward market acceptance litmus tests that fit nicely within any stage of existing design processes,” said Beck.

“We were looking for software that was easy enough to use that it could be adopted quickly. We also sought a partner like SantosHuman Inc. with great support mechanisms and highly skilled support staff who can ensure the simulation projects run smoothly,” says Marshall.

“We’re excited for this opportunity to partner with Royal Enfield as they move their already popular motorcycle designs to the next level of competitive advantage,” said Beck.

For more information about using predictive human behavior models to evaluate designs, read this post on precision grasps.

SantosHuman Inc. with research partners from the University of Ottawa and the University of Waterloo received an additional $846,863 (Canadian) in funding to continue their work toward optimizing Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) soldier performance. The one-year phase 1b funding will produce a beta version of the CANadian virtual Soldier Performance Prediction and Optimization Tool (CAN-SPPOT), which will provide data to help minimize soldier injuries that can be caused by personal, operational, equipment and environmental factors.

This phase of research continues the CAN-SPPOT proof of concept work begun in 2019 with a $200,000 contract from the Department of National Defence’s (DND) Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program. The initial phase integrated common CAF equipment and armor configurations into the Santos Pro® platform. In addition, artificial intelligence-based algorithms have enabled Santos predictive models to generate soldier-specific motion profiles under different equipment configurations.

“CAN-SPPOT will be an exciting new virtual soldier platform that unites SantosHuman Inc’s cutting-edge human-in-the-loop simulation with our leading research and development in the application of artificial intelligence. It will provide an unrivaled ability to predict unique soldier-specific movement and performance outcomes,” said lead investigator Ryan Graham from the University of Ottawa. “Blending leading AI and biomechanics research with SantosHuman Inc’s state-of-the-art predictive model ensures that CAN-SPPOT will directly and effectively address pressing human-systems-integration challenges for the Canadian Armed Forces.”

The goal of the beta version of CAN-SPPOT is to enable CAF and DND users to evaluate detailed digital avatars that match the shape, sizes and look of CAF soldiers. They will be able to perform trade-off analyses of numerous factors, such as the role of fatigue and other risk factors and their influences on posture, movement and overall performance.

“SantosHuman could not be more honored and excited to be part of the research team and this proactive effort to help the Canadian Armed Forces protect their soldiers from injury,” said Steve Beck, CEO of SantosHuman Inc.

DND launched the IDEaS program in 2018 as part of Canada’s defense policy: Strong, Secure, Engaged. IDEaS fosters open innovation to provide creative thinkers with the structure and support to encourage solutions, which will assist in solving some of Canada’s toughest defense and security challenges. The goal of IDEaS is to identify innovative solutions to key challenges facing the CAF, including technology to improve the prediction and optimization of personnel performance.

 

Brazil’s Universidade Federal de São Carlos (USFCar) is the latest industrial engineering program to employ Santos digital human modeling software in its hands-on ergonomics education and research endeavors. Through the Santos University Program, future industrial engineers can leverage the powerful human behavior simulation capabilities of Santos Pro to explore the design of new personal protective equipment for healthcare workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. They will also use it for courses in ergonomics, product design and work design and to pursue research on working conditions that include collaboration with robots.

“We are looking forward to working with Santos Pro to enable the potential of human simulation in ergonomics analysis and design, both in our research efforts and educational activities,” said Dr. Daniel Braatz, Professor of Engineering. “Santos is a powerful toolset for working on ergonomics and understanding human performance. Unlike other digital human modeling software, Santos is user friendly and employs novel approaches to human simulation. It should work well for our current work on healthcare PPE.”

Steve Beck, CEO with SantosHuman Inc., looks forward to seeing what USFCar will be able to accomplish on relevant, real-life issues like PPE and the incorporation of the software development kit into game engines and other systems simulation software.

“Every institution in the Santos University Program brings something different to the table, and USFCar’s happens to be COVID-19 related,” Beck said. “Santos Pro can help them research and develop improvements and innovations in protective healthcare equipment.”

Students in the 6^th ranked industrial engineering program in Brazil are excited, too. Esdras Paravizo is the first graduate student and Brazilian to receive the UK Smith Student Award from the 20^th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association for his paper on industrial workplace ergonomics.

“As a student, it’s always exciting to have the opportunity to learn new tools that can help us to put into practice the concepts and theories we learn in classes,” said Paravizo. “With Santos, we can set ourselves apart in the job market in terms of the toolset we’ll have when we graduate.”

 

The Santos University Program partners with institutes of higher education to provide its products for non-commercial, educational, and/or research purposes. The partnerships in Europe and North and South America now include Nipissing University, University of Michigan-Dearborn, University of California-Berkeley, Oregon State University, Politecnico di Milano, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the University of Waterloo, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Lakehead University, University of Illinois at Chicago and Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi.

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering has adopted Santos digital human modeling software to support research on ergonomics and safety. By partnering with the Santos University Program, UIC students and faculty can use Santos technology in their research and classrooms.

“It’s an honor to welcome another renowned engineering college program into the Santos University Program,” said Steve Beck, CEO with SantosHuman Inc. “We look forward to seeing their students and faculty leverage the power of Santos Technology into their ergonomics and safety research and curriculum.”

“We’re training students on the Santos software so they can conduct independent research related to ergonomics,” said Quintin L. Williams, Jr., Ph.D., Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UIC. “Santos will also be part of Advanced Occupational Safety Ergonomics modules and my research on optimizing surgical tool development to prevent fatigue and injury.”

UIC engineering students are already excited about the array of tools and features Santos offers for recreating real-life situations and analyzing key performance indicators. They are finding complex

“Santos is by far the best example of a true simulation of the human in a virtual environment,” said Dr. Williams. “The Santos University Program is a cost-effective opportunity to create manufacturing and medical workplace evaluations for our research.”

UIC joins other universities from around the world in the Santos University Program, which partners with institutes of higher education to provide its products for non-commercial, educational, and/or research purposes. The most recent partnerships in Europe and North and South America now include Nipissing University, University of Michigan-Dearborn, University of California-Berkeley, Oregon State University, Politecnico di Milano, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the University of Waterloo, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Lakehead University and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

Learn more about UIC’s Human-in-Mind Engineering Research Lab and its Dream Lab.