car seats, where comfort doesn't meet owner expectations
DESCRIPTION
Car seats have struggled for many years to live up to promise. This struggle is explained by a design process that leaves the seat out of interior design until all positions and geometry of the interior have been established. The result is unpredictable comfort, unexpected problems with vision of the dash and reach to controls and a general inability to sit in your preferred posture. A new tool is available to provide the manufacturers with seated driver models that represent the seated needs of the driver at the start of design. This presentation is the story of the current process and the tool that can fix it.TRANSCRIPT
Car seats, where comfort doesn’t meet owner expectations!
Mac Reynolds, Ph.D.February 14, 2014
Auto seat design is expensive and unpredictable. It follows a 1960’s process
that is based on the position of one manikin.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Drivers use seats to position themselves to operate the car.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
When conditions change, sitting posture changes.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
When posture changes, seat position changes.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Erect
Slumped
Globally, people use erect to slumped sitting
postures for talking, working and driving.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Does this seat perform to your expectations?
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Interior performance is safety, ergonomics and comfort that equal
owner expectations of car performance.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Seats have to fit a range of body sizes.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
This seat forces a slumped posture that lowers her eye height.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
This seat is small and controls are too far away.
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We don’t know your personal preference, but if you are short, you want to sit upright for good vision.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
04/13/2023 13
If you are tall, you may sit slumped to fit.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
These seats meet position requirements, but do they
perform for owners?
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Seat design began in the 1960s to use H-point, defined in the car with this 2D template, “Oscar.”
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Oscar came from 12 male drivers sitting in a 1961 bench seat.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
(S. P. Geoffrey, 1961)
After the seat was built, it was checked with this H-point machine.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
The H-point machine was developed as an accommodation checking device to be used
after the car was built.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
These tools were developed to check dimensions in cars
with bench seats.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Then, in 1967, Oscar was written into federal regulations. He acquired his
head in 2001 when head restraint regulations were added.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Government regulations and industry tradition have re-enforced
using Oscar without a seat.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Today, Oscar is simply positioned in the new car from his position in the older model.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
2012
2005
Then, design proceeds with reach models, like RAMSIS, sitting without a seat
design.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Eventually, a seat is built, and Oscar checks the head restraint and H-point location.
Head Restraint test of Position
H-Point test of Position
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Finally, drivers test whether the seat performs.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
To build car interiors that perform, seated drivers are needed in the car at
the start of design.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
27
Erect
Neutral
Slumped
Small Large
Medium
We represent seated drivers for seat design
performance before the car is built!
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
4’11”
5’9”
6’3”
Oscar defines H-point position in the car; ERL defines seat
design for performance.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
We sit to drive the car on a plain surface defined for a designer to
create a seat trim style.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Our body weight is supported on the seat at anatomical landmarks. Vertebrae are
used to design the seat back surface.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Our pelvis and thigh are used to design the cushion surface.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Our backside represents our seated shape. So seat design is optimized for best contact with our bodies.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
We each have three back postures that are used in
different driving conditions.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Erect
Straight
Slumped
Oscar can define H-point position, but not improve performance.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
To improve interior performance, seated drivers must be used with Oscar at the start of car design.
US Patents: #6,840,125, #7,047,831, #7,347,114, #7,797,138
Hi, I’m Mac Reynolds and I can be reached by email ([email protected]).