Seating System with Adjustable Sheet and Body Surface Measurement

[abstFig src='/00280001/08.jpg' width=""220"" text='Wheel chair with adjustable sheets' ]The seat is an important interface between many types of machines and their users, able-bodied and disabled users alike. In this work, new seating system with adjustable sheets and body surface measurement is developed to improve the sitting postures and pressure distributions for patients with deformed backbones. A basic structure and adjustment method for the adjustable sheet is proposed. In addition, a way of using a Microsoft Kinect sensor to measure lengths is also developed and utilized to adjust the seating system. Evaluation tests are conducted on a healthy subject with different mock spinal deformations, and pressure distributions and postures of the subject are evaluated. The proposed method successfully averages pressure on the model and also adjusts his posture, simultaneously reducing pressure and increasing the contact area of the back.