THE VIRTUAL SOLDIER RESEARCH PROGRAM

The Virtual Soldier Research Program Announces Strategic Collaboration with VICON Motion Systems

Iowa City, IA (August 24, 2004) - The Virtual Soldier Research (VSR) program at The University of Iowa's College of Engineering today announced a strategic collaboration with VICON, the leading developer in motion capture systems. Using VICON's advanced optical motion capture technology, the VSR program will conduct research on real-time interaction with virtual humans, with motion capture data of human subjects being applied to validate mathematical results for human motion prediction.

VSR research will use VICON real-time motion capture to drive virtual humans in a digital world to support the US Army Transformation vision for Future Combat Systems, where digital mockups are evaluated early during the design cycle. VICON's motion capture system will also be used for tracking weapons and equipment in a virtual reality environment for training, maintainability analysis, and human factors studies. Via the collaboration, the VSR program acquired an advanced setup for motion capture, software and hardware, and will serve as a beta testing site for VICON's most recent research in cameras, optical technology, and tracking suits.

"The use of VICON's motion capture system will allow us to drive, in real time, the motion of Santos, our intelligent virtual human. VICON's accurate cameras and advanced software will enable us to resolve long-standing issues in the field of digital human modeling and simulation," said Dr. Karim Abdel-Malek, Director of the VSR program at The University of Iowa. "We are very excited to participate in this project. VSR represents a leading edge use of animation, game, and motion capture technology applied into the world of human factors engineering," said Jon Damush, Business Development Manager, VICON. "By using animation techniques traditionally applied in entertainment, VSR is producing results that are not only quantitative - the data that is usually generated in engineering applications - but also qualitative in the form of high-quality rendered output to truly visualize the way that real soldiers might react on the field." About VSR The VSR program is an independent research group within the Center for Computer-Aided Design (CCAD), The University of Iowa. This eight-month-"young" program, funded primarily by the US Army TACOM, conducts basic and applied research for creating new technologies dealing with digital human modeling and simulation.

TACOM and the industrial design industry, in general, are looking for ways to eliminate building extremely expensive, real-world prototypes. VSR's objective is to create autonomous, digital humans that can answer human-factors questions in the virtual world environment. The University of Iowa researchers (faculty, staff, scientists, engineers, clinical researchers, and graduate students) from various fields including engineering, gaming, psychology, biomechanics, human factors, computers, optimization, and industrial design have come together to create this new technology. The development and use of autonomous, virtual soldiers that can experience computer-modeled versions of proposed vehicles and weapons systems in the virtual world - and then provide feedback on the designs - brings eliminating the need for producing real-world prototypes for human factors research several steps closer to reality.

For more information click on the link below:

www.engineering.uiowa.edu/~amalek/VSR/