Statistical Analysis of Anthropometric Data,

A major source of problems in poor fitting environmental protection equipment is the lack of proper consideration of the possible variation among aircrew facial feature sets. The design of flight equipment is currently based on rather outdated mechanical anthropometric measuring techniques with limited justification for specific size and shape characteristics. This paper discusses the preliminary attempt to statistically capture this variability in an organized manner. Three-dimensional data collected from a laser scan of 200 subjects were statistically summarized for presentation and analysis. However, the techniques applied to the problem go beyond the classical Fourier or trend surface methods. Statistical methods traditionally reserved for geology were applied allowing full consideration of the correlation structure of the facial area.