December 8, 2014 Body Labs To Be Used By The U.S. Army
Company’s state-of-the-art digital body modeling technology attracts two-year contract with U.S. Army’s Integrated Warrior Systems to power the development of numerous tools and capabilities for producing better fitting and performing equipment and clothing
NEW YORK — December 8, 2014 — Body Labs (bodylabs.com), which has developed technology to transform the human body into a digital platform, announced today that it has been awarded a two-year contract with the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) to develop a suite of tools for use in designing and manufacturing specialty body armor for the growing number of active female soldiers. Body Labs is providing NSRDEC with extensive data and analytics related to human body shape and movement, which, in turn, will help NSRDEC produce life-saving improvements in protective combat gear and meet its mission of maximizing each warrior’s mobility, survivability, and combat effectiveness.
In a contract managed by the NSRDEC, Body Labs is working with the U.S. Army to create a detailed analysis of the Army’s database of body shapes and tools which enable product designers and CAD engineers to use exact body models as the platform upon which equipment and clothing can be designed. Among the projects that Body Labs is undertaking is converting a recently acquired survey of 14,000 soldier scans into 3D digital avatars and enabling a detailed understanding and visualization of size, shape and motion. The Company, whose technology was built on nearly a decade of research relating to human body shape and pose from Brown University, will transform these scans into comprehensive statistical models. This will enable advanced, unprecedented insight into the fit and performance of body armor that better caters to the shape and movement of female soldiers.
“I am proud that technology and knowledge developed here in Rhode Island will contribute to protecting servicewomen on the battlefield,” said U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “This contract demonstrates how Rhode Island’s research community is doing work that makes a real difference.”
According to Pentagon statistics, women make up about 15 percent of the U.S. military’s 1.3 million active-duty service members with almost 71,000 currently in the Army’s active component. As soon as 2016, women will be eligible for combat jobs, requiring Army researchers to quickly improve on the functionality of body armor to cater to the influx of new soldiers.
“We are proud to partner with the U.S. Army. We want to deploy the full potential of our technology to help protect our soldiers,” said Bill O’Farrell, co-founder and CEO of Body Labs. “Understanding the breadth of human 3D geometry and human motion will help the Army produce tactical armor that is optimally fit to the greatest number of soldiers. And, that same understanding and the tools we build from it, can be applied to the design and manufacturing challenges the Army faces in a host of other areas, including uniforms, backpacks, helmets, boots and vehicles.”
About Body Labs
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Manhattan, Body Labs collects, digitizes, and organizes all of the data and information related to human body shape, pose, and motion. Its mission is to transform the human body into a digital platform upon and around which goods and services can be designed, produced, bought and sold. For more information, please visit: www.bodylabs.com.
About NSRDEC
The Natick Soldier RD&E Center (NSRDEC) is located at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts, under the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM). We have the dedicated mission to maximize the Warrior’s survivability, sustainability, mobility, combat effectiveness and quality of life by treating the Soldier as a System. Situated near the birthplace of the Nation’s Army, NSRDEC is also the birthplace of the Soldier as a System concept.
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