Digital Human Models within product development process

This chapter focuses on the use of Digital Human Models (DHM) within the product development process enabling the designers to address and solve ergonomics and human factors along the whole product life-cycle. First part of the chapter introduces the state of the art of DHM tools. It comprises a short history, which points out the evolution of virtual humans since their origins, and proposes a classification taking into account also fields of application. Second part of the chapter describes possible applications of DHM within the product development process. Case studies from different industrial contexts are presented and discussed. The first regards the use of DHM and VR techniques in automotive and farm tractor industry, the second the integration of virtual prototyping techniques with DHM to validate and study new solutions for refrigerated unit and machinery and the last one the virtual testing of artificial lower limb prosthesis. Final re-marks conclude the chapter.