A Study of a Ride Comfort Control System for Ultra-Compact Vehicles Using Biometric Information

Abstract

We investigated whether there is a correlation between the comfort felt by occupants and the comfort estimated from biological information obtained by experiments to improve the ride quality of an ultra-compact vehicle. A single frequency in the vertical direction can help to estimate occupant comfort. However, we hypothesized that the study of a single frequency was insufficient. We oscillated the occupants with vibrations containing multiple vibration frequencies and obtained biometric information. The vibration frequency was set based on the difference in ride quality felt by humans. Biometric information was obtained using a cerebral hemodynamic meter and electrocardiogram. Acquiring multiple types of biometric information helps to more accurately estimate the psychological state. After the experiment, we obtained a subjective evaluation of comfort against vibrations using the visual analog scale (VAS). The biometric information obtained by the experiment was cluster-analyzed, and experimental participants with similar characteristics of the biometric information were grouped. Multiple regression analysis was performed based on the values of the typical biometric information of the cluster. Comfort was estimated from biometric information using multiple regression analysis. A correlation was confirmed between measured and estimated VAS scores.