Heavy Duty Driver Seat

It can also cause physical pain for the driver and lead to injury in the spine, lower back, and neck and shoulders, both while on and off the road.

This project aims to create a safer, more pleasant working environment for a heavy-duty vehicle driver by developing an ergonomic seat that will improve their comfort and mitigate the risk of injury and pain.

By reducing unwanted vibration, the innovative seat will reduce fatigue and enable better performance from the driver. 

The researchers aim to create a seat with greater freedom that is able to reduce longitudinal, vertical, lateral, pitch and roll vibration as needed and with a backrest that can automatically adjust to the driver’s position. This project has potential benefits for the mining, transport and construction industries, which all rely heavily on heavy-duty vehicles. 

The Team

An Innovative Ergonomic Conceptual Design of Heavy Duty Vehicle Driver Seat brings together researchers with expertises in a range of fields, including engineering, biomechanics, design, and social sciences. 

Dr Haiping Du is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences.

Professor Weihua Li is in the School of Mechanicals, Materials and Mechatronic Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences.

Dr David Stirling is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical, Computers and Telecommunications Engineer in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences.

Dr Montserrat Ros is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical, Computers and Telecommunications Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences.

Stephen Palmisano is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology in the Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities.

Dr Paul Stapley is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine in the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health.

Zhenxiang Cheng is an Associate Professor in the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials at UOW.

Project Outcomes and Publications

This project team have successfully made the first working prototype of the innovative ergonomic drivers seat.  The theoretical and experimental validation of this project have been reported, with numerous publications to date. 

• Stephen Palmisano, R. M., Juno Kim (2017). Vection and cybersickness generated by head-and-display motion in the Oculus Rift. Displays 46(1-8).
• S.S. Sun, J. Y., W.H. Li, , H. Du, G. Alici, T.H. Yan, Masami Nakano (2017). Development of an isolator working with magnetorheological elastomers and fluids. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 83(15): 371-384.
• Yang, J. S., Shuaishuai; Tongfei Tian; Li, Weihua; Du, Haiping; Alici, Gursel; Masami Nakano (2016). Development of a novel multi-layer MRE isolator for suppression of building vibrations under seismic events. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 70(71): 811-820.
• Sun, S. Y., Jian; Li, Weihua; Deng, Huaxia; Du, Haiping; Alici, Gursel; Yan, Tian-Hong (2016). An innovative MRE absorber with double natural frequencies for wide frequency bandwidth vibration absorption. Smart Materials and Structures 25(5): 055035.
• Sun, S. N., Donghong; Yang, Jian; Du, Haiping; Zhang, Shiwu; Li, Weihua (2016). A seat suspension with a rotary magnetorheological damper for heavy duty vehicles. Smart Materials and Structures 25(10): 105035.
• James Coyte, D. S., Haiping Du, Montse Ros (2016). Seated Whole Body Vibration Analysis,Technologies and Modelling: a Survey, IEEE Transactions on Systems. Man and Cybernetics: Systems 46(6): 725-739.
• Donghong Ning, S. S., Jiawei Zhang, Haiping Du, Weihua Li and Xu Wang (2016). An active seat suspension design for vibration control of heavy duty vehicles. Journal of Low Frequency Noise, Vibration & Active Control 35(4): 264-278.
• Donghong Ning, S. S., Jiawei Zhang, Haiping Du, Weihua Li and Xu Wang (2016). Active control of an innovative seat suspension system with acceleration measurement based friction estimation. Journal of Sound and Vibration(384): 28-44.
• Yang, J. S., Shuaishuai; Li, Weihua; Du, Haiping; Alici, Gursel; Masami Nakano (2015). Development of a linear damper working with magnetorheological shear thickening fluids. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures Special Issue.
• Sun, S. Y., Jian; Li, Weihua; Deng, Huaxia; Du, Haiping; Alici, Gursel; Yan, Tian-Hong (2015). Development of an MRE Adaptive Tuned Vibration Absorber with Self-sensing capability. Smart Materials and Structures 24 (095012).
• Sun, S. Y., Jian; Li, Weihua; Deng, Huaxia; Du, Haiping; Alici, Gursel; Yan, Tian-Hong (2015). Development of a novel variable stiffness and damping magnetorheological fluid damper. Smart Materials and Structures 24 (085021).
• Sun, S., Deng, H., Du, H.P., Li, W., Yang, J., Liu, G., Alici, G., Yan, T. (2015). A compact variable stiffness and damping shock absorber for vehicle suspension. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 20(5): 2621 – 2629.
• Sun, S., Deng, H., Yang, J., Du, H.P., Li, W., Alici, G. (2015). An adaptive tuned vibration absorber based on multilayered MR elastomers. Smart Materials and Structures 24(045045).
• Shuaishuai Sun, J. Y., Huaxia Deng, Haiping Du, Weihua Li, Gursel Alici, M Nakano (2015). Horizontal Vibration Reduction of a Seat Suspension Using Negative Changing Stiffness Magnetorheological Elastomer Isolators. International Journal of Vehicle Design 68(1): 104-118.
• S. Sun, J. Y., H Du, W Li (2015). Performance evaluation and comparison of MRE absorbers working in shear and squeeze modes. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures Special Issue.
• Apthorp, D., & Palmisano, S. (2014).  The role of perceived speed in vection: does perceived speed modulate the jitter and oscillation advantages? PLOS ONE, 9(3), e92260 1-14. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0092260.               
• Palmisano, S., Allison, R.S., Ash, A., Nakamura, S. & Apthorp, D. (2014). Evidence against an ecological explanation of the jitter advantage for vection.  Frontiers in Psychology (Perception Science), 5:1297,1-9.                
• Palmisano, S., Apthorp, D., Seno, T., & Stapley, P.J. (2014).  Spontaneous postural sway predicts the strength of smooth vection.  Experimental Brain Research, 232, 1185-1191  
• M A Just, D Stirling,P J Stapley, M Ros, F Naghdy, A comparison of upper limb movement profiles when reaching to virtual and real targets using the Oculus Rift: implications for virtual-reality enhanced stroke rehabilitation, Proc. 10th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2–4 Sept. 2014, 2014 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6. 
• J. Yang, S. Sun, H. Du, W. Li, G. Alici, and H. X. Deng, A novel magnetorheological elastomer isolator with negative changing stiffness for vibration reduction, Smart Materials and Structures, 23(10), 2014, 105023 doi:10.1088/0964-1726/23/10/105023.