Help shape the future of vehicle safety by developing next-generation human body models that capture how people of different sex, body shape, and seating posture respond in crashes.

This PhD project combines biomechanics, medical imaging, statistical shape modelling, deep learning and virtual crash simulation to create more realistic and equitable safety assessment tools for tomorrow’s transport systems.

About The Research Project

This project aims to develop a science-based, full-body morphing framework for Human Body Models (HBMs) that can better represent how people of different sex, body size, body composition, and seating posture respond in vehicle crashes. Current safety assessment methods still rely heavily on a limited set of standard occupant models, which means that key groups—such as women, overweight and obese individuals, older occupants, and people in non-standard or reclined seating positions—are not sufficiently represented.

The project addresses this gap by combining biomechanics, medical imaging, statistical shape modelling,



and virtual crash simulation to create coherent models of both the human skeleton and external body surface. A key focus is to improve the realism of safety-critical regions such as the abdomen, pelvis, torso, and breast tissue, where body shape and posture strongly influence seatbelt interaction, occupant motion, and injury risk.

The work is carried out through data collection, development of statistical shape models, integration into a unified morphing framework, and application in safety-relevant crash scenarios. The project also evaluates how improved anatomical and posture-dependent modelling affects occupant kinematics, restraint interaction, and injury-related responses in future vehicle concepts, including automated and shared vehicles.

By creating more realistic and transparent tools for population-based virtual safety assessment, the project will support fairer and more robust vehicle safety evaluation and

📌 Doctoral student in statistical shape modelling of the human body for vehicle safety applications (Burdwan)
🏢 Emerging Scholars Council
📍 Burdwan