Virtual environments and prototyping for human health and safety

The chapter focuses on virtual environments and virtual prototyping methods and techniques, whose application in the design of products, manufacturing processes, assistive devices, medical tools and treatments, can improve the human condition both in industry, and in everyday life. Human beings can benefit from experiments, carried out on digital human models, in order to evaluate their performances on the work, their interaction with automated mechanical systems and their feedback about innovative medical treatments. Virtual Ergonomics and Virtual Safety are more and more recognised as crucial aspects of the life cycle management of industrial products. Indeed, it is understood that digital humans simulations can be very useful to evaluate the Workplace Health and Safety. Moreover, both in industrial and in non-industrial contexts, reliability and safety are of great importance when human beings and robots need to share their workspaces to collaboratively perform a specific task.