Virtual prototyping based development and marketing of future consumer electronics products

Industries in many high-volume global businesses, such as automotive, consumer electronics and telecommunications are moving to a two phased product development paradigm with an all-digital front-end to develop the product concepts, and an agile production capability to manufacture and market the product. In this position-type paper we address a particular enabling technology, virtual prototyping, in the context of consumer electronics and telecommunication industries. A virtual reality based development environment for consumer electronics and telecommunication products is described. The aim is to develop all-digital prototypes resembling the physical products as closely as possible in terms of visual 3-D image, behavioural, functional, haptic characteristics and auditory characteristics.