Study on the evaluation of automotive seat comfort during prolonged simulated driving

Abstract

Prolonged driving can affect driver's lumbar and neck such as low back pain and cervical spondylosis. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between drivers' comfort and their physiological parameters, the seat pressure distribution during prolonged driving in order to evaluate the comfort of different automotive seats. The experiment was performed on two actual automobiles. Six male drivers, aged 20 to 24 years participated in the simulated driving experiment in which the drivers sat in the car and simulated the driving movements in 2 hours. Electromyography (EMG), seat pressure distribution and oxygen saturation were measured during the experiment with subjective questionnaire. According to the results, MPF, MF, Pm and longitudinal pressure integral (PL) are high significant with the subjective comfort, otherwise the oxygen saturation was almost constant during the whole experiment which has little significance. Therefore from the study we can see the most sensitive part to feel discomfort during prolonged driving and the relationship between discomfort and physiological parameters was also clarified which can be used to find which automotive seat is more comfortable. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.