ASU's ANDI, the world’s first outdoor breathing, sweating and walking thermal manikin, will help researchers better understand how our human bodies are impacted by heat stress.

ANDI can mimic the thermal functions of the human body, like changing skin temperature and changing core temperature, and has 35 different surface areas that are all individually controlled with temperature sensors, heat flux sensors and pores that bead sweat.

ASU research scientist Ankit Joshi explains that the team can build customized thermal regulation models and input them into ANDI to account for how age, body size and other characteristics of overall health play critical roles in how people respond to extreme heat differently.

This summer, researchers will pair ANDI with MaRTy, ASU’s biometeorological heat robot, to work together and better understand human sweating mechanisms, like changing skin temperature and changing core temperature, and identify how specific environments may enhance heat risk.

With the data and information collected, researchers hope to design interventions, such as cooling clothes or exoskeletons for backpacks that are designed for cooling support.