Crash test dummies currently come in three major flavors: male, female and child. However, while these do offer some diversity and give context and nuance to results, they don’t cater for the special needs of other (quite numerous) categories such as the obese and elderly.
That’s soon to change, though, as Humanetics, the world leader in crash test dummies has just released its latest generation model. Called THOR (which stands for Test device for Human Occupant Restraint), these will not only be able to take more (and more accurate) measurements of impact forces.
Based upon THOR, the company hopes to make a wider size range of dummies that will better replicate real people’s behavior in a crash situation. For instance, according to CNN, “risk of a serious injury increases by 20% in 50-year-old drivers, by 40% at 80, and steadily higher thereafter. Replicating age in a dummy is an ongoing challenge, but the company hope to have a prototype by 2015.”
The future will be completely digital, it seems, and we’re not surprised, since even gaming-oriented simulations nowadays can simulate crashes in intricate detail.