Possibility of automobile seat evaluation with seat fidgets and movements

Abstract

In the previous study, we suggested the seat fidgets and movements (SFMs) to evaluate driver discomfort which increases with time. As the next stage, we investigated application possibility of SFMs to the evaluation of the automobile seats. In the experiment, three types of automobile seat were provided. The participants were asked to travel on the road with some vibration section for 60 min. During the experiment, they executed reading task instead of a driving task to simulate front seat passenger. Besides, the participant movement was video-recorded to analyze the frequency of SFMs off-line. As a result, the acceleration values varied according to the type of seat and were significantly different. The participants’ discomfort ratings had a different tendency from the acceleration values. The SFMs frequency occasionally indicated a similar tendency to the discomfort ratings. These results exhibit that SFMs will be one of the useful ways to evaluate ride comfort objectively.