Humanetics’ THOR-5F, the world’s first crash test dummy specifically designed around female anatomy, has been honored with a top global innovation award. The recognition comes as regulators in the U.S., EU, and China move toward adopting the world’s most advanced female crash test dummy to help close a crash-safety gap that puts women at greater risk.
FARMINGTON HILLS, Michigan – Humanetics today announced that its THOR-5F advanced crash test dummy has been named Testing Hardware Innovation of the Year at the 2026 Automotive Testing Technology International (ATTI) Awards, presented during Automotive Testing Expo Europe in Stuttgart, Germany. The award honors what many in the field regard as the most significant advance in years toward a long-overdue goal: ensuring that the cars women drive and ride in are tested, and engineered, to protect women’s bodies, not just men’s.
“This award belongs to everyone who refused to accept that women should be less protected than men on the road,” said Christopher O’Connor, President & CEO of Humanetics. “The THOR-5F is the product of years of collaboration among Humanetics engineers, regulators, and researchers who share one conviction: vehicle safety must reflect the full diversity of the people it is meant to protect.”
A Safety Gap Measured in Lives
For more than half a century, the dummies used to design and certify vehicle safety systems have been based primarily on the average adult male. The consequences have been measurable and serious. Research from the University of Virginia found that belted women are 73% more likely than belted men to be seriously injured in a frontal crash, even after accounting for crash severity, age, height, weight, and vehicle age. Federal data show belted women are roughly 17% more likely to be killed in a comparable crash.
Women deserve the same level of protection as men in a crash. They tend to sit closer to the steering wheel and the deploying airbag, and they differ from men in bone density, muscle distribution, neck strength, and pelvic structure. Yet the seatbelts and airbags meant to protect them are optimized against regulatory tests that use devices without sensors where women are most vulnerable to injury. Until safety systems are evaluated against a tool that reflects those differences, women will remain at risk.
A tool built from the ground up for women
The THOR-5F changes that. With 150 sensors instrumented where women are most vulnerable to impact, it is the industry’s most advanced female frontal-impact crash test dummy — engineered from the ground up around female anthropometry rather than scaled down from a male design. Enhanced thorax biofidelity, improved pelvis instrumentation, refined spine and joint structures, and an expanded array of sensors give engineers a far clearer picture of how a female occupant responds in a crash. That data is precisely what allows automakers to fine-tune seatbelts, airbags, seating geometry, and restraint timing to protect women as effectively as men.
Complementing the physical device is a corresponding finite element model developed by Humanetics. The model allows to compare and correlate physical test data with simulation results, supporting ongoing efforts to better understand female injury biomechanics and occupant protection.
From the laboratory to the rulebook, in the U.S., EU, and China
The award also recognizes the role of public-sector leadership. The THOR-5F was developed in close partnership with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), whose research, funding, and sustained commitment have been central to bringing a credible, validated female dummy to readiness. Following extensive validation, repeatability, and durability testing, NHTSA has signaled its intent to incorporate the THOR-5F into future vehicle safety assessments. This step paves the way for adoption across regulatory and consumer-rating programs in the United States, the European Union, and China. Indeed, Euro NCAP is the first safety group that has committed to introducing THOR-5F into its 5-Star safety assessments in 2029.
Once written into regulation across these markets, the THOR-5F would give engineers a common, female-representative benchmark, and give women, for the first time, real assurance that a vehicle’s safety rating reflects their safety, too.
“This recognition signals us the industry is ready to make that vision real.” said Christopher O’Connor, President & CEO of Humanetics, who accepted the award in Stuttgart. “The technology now exists to better understand and protect female occupants, and we have a responsibility to ensure those insights are translated into safer vehicles for everyone.”
“The technology is ready. What’s needed now is the regulatory will to require it,” said Mark Westen, President of Humanetics Safety. “We urge policymakers and regulators in the United States, Europe, and China to move the THOR-5F from validation into rule, so that every new vehicle is tested for the people most at risk. Closing this gap is not a question of capability; it is a question of priority. Women have waited long enough to be designed for.”
For safety advocates, lawmakers, and the hundreds of millions of women who get behind the wheel every day, the message is straightforward: the tool to close the crash-safety gap now exists, and it has been recognized by the industry’s own. The remaining work is to require its use, turning a proven innovation into protection that reaches every road, every vehicle, and every woman.
The THOR-5F is part of Humanetics’ broader Safety Intelligence strategy, which combines physical testing, digital simulation, human body modeling, and advanced sensing to help manufacturers and regulators make better-informed safety decisions, advancing the long-term goal of reducing serious injuries and fatalities on roads worldwide.
About Humanetics (Website: https://www.humaneticsgroup.com/)
Humanetics is an Industrial technology group, and a leading provider of safety systems, crash test dummies (ATDs), simulation software (RAMSIS), CAE models, human body models, complete line of passive & active safety SW & testing solutions, precision sensors, fiber optics and laser material processing solutions. The group is organized into three divisions (Safety, Digital and Sensors) focused on precision engineering and software development that puts humans at the heart of industrial design. The group has over 1100 employees located in facilities worldwide, with our global corporate headquarters in Farmington Hills, Michigan, USA.
For information, please contact:
Barney Loehnis, CMO, Humanetics
[email protected] +1 203 246 1397
Barney Loehnis
Barney is the President of Humanetics Sensors & Chief Marketing Officer, leading our Sensor group and marketing growth programs, strategic communications, and customer experience design. He has led marketing and digital transformations in Europe, Asia and the USA in B2B, B2C and agency sectors, for clients like IBM, VW, Huawei, Qualcomm and Mercer Consulting. Barney is a British and American citizen, a bad runner and avid cook.