INVESTIGATION OF VEHICLE SEAT WITH ACTIVE CONTROL SYSTEM TO MINIMIZE VERTICAL VIBRATIONS FROM SEAT TO HUMAN BODY

This paper describes an active control system intended to minimize the vertical vibrations transferred from the seat to the human body in a vehicle. This system controls mechanical properties such as the spring constants and damping coefficients of each part of the vehicle seat by using an optimization algorithm that comprises vibration analysis and an optimization method. To examine the feasibility of the optimization algorithm, we designed a vibration model for the seat occupant system and calculated the reduction in vibration due to the algorithm by numerical analysis. The mechanical properties of the back and front side of the seat were controlled with reference to the standard condition in the range of 1/1.5-1.5 times, 1/2-2 times, and 1/4-4 times. These results suggest that the percentage reduction in vibration for the head a sensitive part of the human body because of acceleration in the frequency range of 4-8 Hz was 36 % -52 %, 40% - 63 %, and 55 - % 76 %, respectively. In summary, the proposed algorithm successfully reduced vibrations from the seat to the human body in a vehicle.