Designing for comfort and reliability in an intelligent car seat

Abstract

Today, intelligent safety systems are installed in modern cars in view of minimising road hazards. An intelligent air bag system for example, comprised several subsystems that are integrated to include the weight sensor system, image sensor system, crash sensor system and tyre pressure monitoring system. These systems when poorly positioned into the car seat, will certainly affect comfort and reliability of the car seat. This research presents the design work on an intelligent car seat, which is equipped with a load cell type-sensory system. The load cells are used to detect the weight of a passenger for the deployment of an air bag system. The proposed design is validated against displacement and stress analysis using an 80 kg load to simulate the weight of a passenger. Results from the design validation indicated that the proposed configuration and material is appropriate for use in the intelligent car seat application. © 2008 Science Publications.