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Deploying an airbag when a vehicle occupant is too close to it can cause injury. An adaptive Airbag Control Unit (ACU) would improve the effectiveness of the safety system, provided it is aware of the actual position of the occupants once the crash is going to occur. Occupants can be monitored with vision-based and radar-based sensing in the vehicle, but the research question is whether other reliable devices exist. In this research, a real seat is equipped with four sensors in the supports from the floor, as well as an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and a microcontroller. The device is capable of identifying correct position or different Out of Position (OP) conditions and inform an adaptive ACU. The paper presents the seat layout in detail and its testing in extensive driving experiments with multiple participants. Depending on the position of the driver, the identification is correct 45–100% of the time. Monitoring the occupant position by a sensorized seat is feasible and can improve the reliability of the onboard safety system when integrated with other occupant monitoring devices.

Ana sanayi firmaları üretimini talep ettikleri taşıt koltuklarının belirli şartnamelere uygun olmasını isterler. İmalatçı firma bu durumda koltuğun prototipini üretip birtakım değiştirme ve iyileştirmelerle teknik şartları sağlamaya çalışabilir. Fakat bu yol pahalı ve zaman alıcıdır. Bu durumda alternatif yöntem koltuğun sonlu eleman modelini geliştirmek ve üzerinde parametrik çalıştırmalar gerçekleştirmektir. Bu çalışmada öncelikle bir ticari araç koltuğunun iskelet aksamına eklenen sünger, kılıf, sırt tahtası gibi katmanların koltuğun ileri-geri ve yanal doğrultudaki modal parametrelere etkisi deneysel olarak incelenmiştir. Buradan elde edilen sonuçlara göre koltuk iskeleti sonlu eleman modeline katmanlar çeşitli kütle ve katılık parametreleriyle eklenmiştir. Daha sonra sonlu eleman modelinin gerçek koltuk modeliyle uyumlu olması için bu parametrelerin uygun değerleri cevap yüzeyi yaklaşımı ile belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca bu yöntemle, ilgili katmanların hangilerinin daha etkili olduğu da görülmüştür. Sonuç olarak, sonlu eleman modeli ile elde edilen temel frekansların her iki doğrultu için deneysel frekanslarla uyumlu olduğu, özellikle ileri-geri harekette frekans cevabı fonksiyonu genliklerinin de birbirine oldukça yakın olduğu görülmüştür.

Improving the vibration isolation for the seat of small vehicles under low excitation frequencies is important for providing good comfort for the driver and passengers. Thus, in this study, a compact, low-dynamic, and high-static stiffness vibration isolation system has been designed. A theoretical analysis of the proposed quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) isolator system for vehicle seats is presented. The isolator consists of two oblique springs and a vertical spring to support the load and to achieve quasi-zero stiffness at the equilibrium position. To support any additional load above the supported weight, a sleeve air spring is used. Furthermore, the two oblique springs are equipped with a horizontal adjustment mechanism that is aimed to reach higher frequencies with the existed stroke when a heavy load is applied. The proposed system can be fitted for small vehicles, especially for B-segment and C-segment cars. Finally, the simulation results reveal that the proposed system has a large isolation frequency range compared to that of the linear isolator.

This research introduces an air spring vibration isolator system (ASVIS) based on a negative-stiffness structure (NSS) to improve the vehicle seat’s vibration isolation performance at low excitation frequencies. The main feature of the ASVIS consists of two symmetric bellows-type air springs which were designed on the basis of a negative stiffness mechanism. In addition, a crisscross structure with two straight bars was also used as the supporting legs to provide the nonlinear characteristics with NSS. Moreover, instead of using a vertical mechanical spring, a sleeve-type air spring was employed to provide positive stiffness. As a result, as the weight of the driver varies, the dynamic stiffness of the ASVIS can be easily adjusted and controlled. Next, the effects of the dimension parameters on the nonlinear force and nonlinear stiffness of ASVIS were analyzed. A design process for the ASVIS is provided based on the analytical results in order to achieve high static–low dynamic stiffness. Finally, numerical simulations were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the ASVIS. The results obtained in this paper show that the values of the seat displacement of the ASVIS with NSS were reduced by 77.16% in comparison with those obtained with the traditional air spring isolator without NSS, which indicates that the design of the ASVIS isolator with NSS allows the effective isolation of vibrations in the low-frequency region.