A body-shaped lumbar-sacral support for improving car-seat comfort

Nowadays the ergonomic study of the driving position is a critical aspect of the design in the automotive field. Indeed, due to the rising needs on the market, car industries are focusing even on internal comfort. The use of the seat could cause some complaints in various regions of our body, especially in the lumbar-sacral one for prolonged postures. Thus, in order to reduce this kind of complaints, a comfort evaluation on a special lumbar support for driver seat has been done. Two prototypes of lumbar/sacral support have been realized: the first one was integrated into the seat and the second one was shaped as a removable pillow (removable support). Fifty participants were asked to rate the perceived comfort in lab tests performed on a seating-buck. Three tests, 5 min each, were performed in three different conditions: standard car seat, car seat with removable support, car seat with integrated support. Both subjective data (by questionnaires) and objective data (pressure at interface between backrest and driver) have been acquired and processed. Correlations between subjective and objective data have been calculated by statistical analysis and showed interesting results about comfort improvement through the adopted solutions.