December 16, 2003
UI center moves ahead, virtually

By Matthew Moss - The Daily Iowan

In a virtual kitchen, "Ellen" reaches out to touch a stove. It may soon be a U.S. Army M1A1 tank.

The computerized woman moves in response to typed commands from Karim Abdel-Malek, the director of the UI's Digital Humans and Virtual Reality Laboratories, who punches in coordinates from the other side of the lab.

The switch from kitchen to battlefield is part of the Center for Computer-Aided Design's $2.5 million renewable contract with the U.S. Army. The Tank Automotive Command Center in October enlisted the center to develop virtual-reality human beings to test the latest military equipment.

The five-year program, Virtual Soldier Research, is creating fully functioning human simulacra that will test military hardware - such as the next generation of tanks - for ergonomic correctness and efficiency. Virtual testing is much more efficient than building and testing a physical prototype, Abdel-Malek said.

A wing in the center's building is being renovated to house offices for the research team of more than 30 people, which includes graduate students and individuals from different branches of engineering as well as physiological and biomedical experts, said engineering Professor V.C. Patel, who oversees the center.

With the government funding, Abdel-Malek said, the center could turn the virtual humans developed prior to the tank-center contract into more sophisticated beings. Future developments include the ability to measure the physiological effects of balance and emotions such as fatigue and fear, as well as the ability to predict injury, he said.

"Virtual humans react much like real humans," he said.

So far, the two virtual beings, which Abdel-Malek described as "crude," can perform such rudimentary functions as touching a fixed point in space.

He said video-game developers and Hollywood are ahead on virtual-reality technology, but such programs as the center are catching up.

"The government wants us to look at what gaming and Hollywood are doing and pull from them," he said. He described a project under development called a Haptic hand - a glove that, using pressure sensors, will allow wearers to "feel" a virtual object as if it were real.

The virtual humans have more than just military applications, Abdel-Malek said. They also test equipment for civilian companies, such as Audi and Maytag. He added that the UI center does not have access to new weaponry and does not accept classified projects, but it sends its completed virtual beings to the military for its own testing.

"Everybody's really going at it," Abdel-Malek said. "It's something new and exciting."

E-mail DI reporter Matthew Moss at:
matthew-moss@uiowa.edu