Exploring integrated seating structures in fully autonomous vehicles from an NVH perspective

An intrinsic need exists in the transport vehicle industry to reduce vehicle weight and enhance safety and comfort. This need extends to fully autonomous vehicles, which will gain commonality over time. Since fully autonomous vehicles remove the need for human driver input, a rethink is required to optimise safety, given that the seating designs and configurations in these vehicles could be different. One avenue to potentially increase fully autonomous vehicle safety is integrating the front-row seating into the main body structure. Since an increase in stiffness results in an increase in structural vibration modes and frequencies, it is possible to assess vehicle safety and structural performance through a vibration study. The proposed integrated seating concept has been compared with the existing seating models to assess design feasibility. Increasing safety for fully autonomous vehicles will improve their comfort perception and crash safety. By studying the vibration characteristics of an integrated seating structure, an initial understanding can be ascertained that points the successful design of one in the right direction.