Driver seat ‘avatar’ could improve F1 racing seats

The team believes that the study, which aimed to develop a more detailed understanding of how a driver physically fits in a car, could improve a driver’s comfort and performance through supporting race seat construction and improving fit ergonomics.

Currently, the most common industry approach for producing a custom race seat relies on a labour intensive, highly subjective process that has not developed over the past two decades. It often leads to the seat being made multiple times until a driver is happy, because of difficulties observing their position and time constraints, the team said.

Researchers from Portsmouth University’s School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science have introduced scientific methods to the process and created a digital ‘avatar’ of Williams driver Nicholas Latifi to simulate his seated position.

According to the team, they did this by building a musculoskeletal model using 3D scanning in computer aided design (CAD) software.

Dr Chris Mills, senior lecturer in biomechanics at Portsmouth University said that the project also has the potential to impact safety by allowing the team to look at what the driver’s musculoskeletal system is doing.

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“We can quantify the forces acting on the driver and within the driver’s spine and muscles. In the future we also hope to understand more about how the seating position affects forces on the driver with the aim to minimise injury risk,” Mills commented.

Philippa Morris, senior design engineer at Williams Racing added that if a driver isn’t comfortable in the cockpit it can impact overall performance.

“That’s why we wanted to find a way to ensure the seat construction is as accurate and efficient as possible. By digitising the process, we have been able to make adjustments to the seat that are anatomically correct, and while there’s still a few things to iron out, the initial data is really promising,” Morris said.