Digital Human in Engineering and Bioengineering Applications

Human centered engineering today is deeply integrated into the product lifecycle in the fields of aerospace, aging, health care, IT and transportation, among others. Human fac-tors are involved in several steps of product life (design, manufacture, maintenance, etc.) and the capability to keep them into account effectively is a key point for a winning prod-uct on the market. During the last decade, Digital Human Models - DHM are becoming more and more popular in different industrial domains because of their broad applicability within the product development process. Virtual humans can represent a valid tool to sup-port the design team during the product development process from the early phases to the disposal, by decreasing the development time, reducing the need of physical prototypes, lowering costs and improving the quality and safety of the products. In this chapter we consider the use of digital human modeling techniques and virtual ergonomics along the product development process. We first introduce the scientific background related to digi-tal human modeling also referring to outcomes from last CIE conferences; them we pre-sent a synthesis of authors’ research activities related to the application of DHM within the product development process as well as practical examples developed in various in-dustrial contexts. Final considerations about potential and current trends conclude the chapter.