Definition equations for the steering wheel location

The environment of vehicle occupants and the arrangement of controls around the driver are critical factors for determining a good vehicle concept. The location of the steering wheel is perhaps one of the most important factors to be considered. Engineering organizations such as SAE and GCIE have struggled to provide guidelines which standardize the variables important during the development of vehicles, and, thus far do not provide a reference for steering wheel positioning. Realizing this deficiency, researchers have devoted considerable effort studying this relationship. Based on the investigations of M. Reed [2013], it was noted that there was an opportunity to develop equations which could serve as references for positioning the steering wheel based upon the seat height (H30), then, find a correlation directly to the driver's seating position. For the development of this work, data from the M. Reed [2013] model was used. The correlation between different seat heights and how these relate to the steering wheel position were investigated and measured in Reed's laboratory. The data was taken from a considerable range of vehicles available in the US market. This data was plotted and the equations obtained by linear interpolation of the points are presented here as references for application in advanced vehicle development, where fast and less precise definitions of the variables are sufficient to determine the main concepts of the vehicle, called Vehicle Advance Packaging. These steering wheel positioning equations were also correlated with a minimum safety distance to the chest of a 50th percentile female Dummy to ensure sufficient time for the Air Bag deployment between the driver and the steering wheel.