With rising customer expectations, driver comfort will become more and more important for car manufacturers in distinguishing themselves from others. This is a challenge, since it is difficult to predict comfort, especially in early design stages. Today, comfort can only be assessed and tested very late in the design a construction process (often using prototypes). Potentially, biomechanic software solutions provide a solution for early comfort testing. Hence, the application of this solution will decrease cost and development time. However, before one is able to create such a software solution, one must have insight into the relationship between mechanical parameters and comfort. This relationship was investigated through a series of experiments in a driving simulator. Both mechanical parameters and comfort were measured. The results showed that seat pressure measurements can be used to quantify driver comfort.
Comfort van auto's en autostoelen is lastig te voorspellen. Door te zoeken naar een relatie tussen zitdruk en houding kan een voorspelling gemaakt worden: er is een zekere relatie gevonden tussen comfort, zitdruk en houding. Deze vinding kan gebruikt worden voor comfortvoorspellingen.