A Technique for Measuring Vehicle Seat Interface Pressure

One of the most important aspects of seat design is seat comfort. A purely subjective measure of comfort, however, is not very useful to designers. Methods for providing objective measures run up against problems of accuracy, repeatability, and problems associated with interfering with the interface that is actually being assessed. The authors outline a technique to provide objective measurement of the seat/subject interface. This allows a graphic and at the same time quantifiable method for presenting the performance of the seat. This should provide useful data to the designer at an earlier and more useful stage of the seat design process.