Integrated Digital Engineering Environment for PPE Development (IDEEP)

To attain the goal of the Topic which is to develop a digital design tool for PPE that allows for rapid exploration of the entire design space, Innovision team has proposed and been developing an innovative solution—Integrated Digital Engineering Environment for PPE development (IDEEP), which consists of six modules: (a) Initial design, which creates a set of design instances in the design space; (b) Virtual prototyping, which uses finite element modeling to create a virtual product of each design; (c) Virtual testing, which integrates a PPE model with a human body model to simulate the multi-physical performance of the PPE being designed; (d) Design optimization, which determines the optimal design based on simulation results using data-driven methodologies; (e) Decision making, which helps a user to make a trade-off decision among multiple competing performance criteria; and (f) Certification by analysis, which assesses the performance of the optimal design based on the simulations with high fidelities.  In Phase II based period, efforts will be made to identity, validate, improve, and integrate human injury models, to develop subsystems for helmet design and body armor design, and to conduct software development of IDEEP, so that a fully functional IDEEP software system prototype will be ready for pre-release upon the completion of Phase II based period. In Phase II option period, efforts will be made to conduct trial uses of IDEEP, to perform pilot studies of PPE development using IDEEP, to conduct physical tests of PPE physical prototypes, to validate and evaluate the performance of IDEEP. Modifications and improvements of IDEEP will be made to create the first full version of IDEEP, which will be ready for the formal release by the end of Phase II option period.