Intelligent Seating System with Haptic Feedback for Active Health Support

Due to infrequent change in posture, static sitting leads to muscular tension and even possible degeneration of the intervertebral discs and is therefore one of the main causes of serious physical complaints of the back. This sitting behavior can be observed particularly at seated workplaces such as office work or vehicle guidance in transport or long-distance traffic. Previous ergonomic seating systems have manually or actuator-operated adjustment mechanisms and in some cases a movable seat mechanism. Postural support is adjusted once and remains unchanged in different sitting positions. This leads to a lack of – or incorrect support of – body posture and thus to rapid fatigue of the muscles and intervertebral discs. A new approach for ergonomic seating systems is the introduction of haptic feedback through automatic and prospective actuator deformation within the seat surface dependent on the user’s individual sitting position and behavior. Haptic feedback is provided by a composite of a sensor that determines the distribution of compressive force and an actuator based on a shape memory alloy. If several units are used in different zones of the seating furniture, the sitting position can be determined and evaluated in real time and the seat can react intelligently. If the user exceeds the permissible retention time within a position, change of sitting position is stimulated by a load-based actuation of the actuators. The discomfort, barely perceptible to the user, leads to dynamic sitting and thus actively helps to reduce muscular tension and maintain performance over a longer period of time. This paper is a draft modular technology concept for the promotion of dynamic body posture in any seating system.