Development of a Piezoresistive Sitting Pressure Distribution Sensor: Experiments on Standard Shape Objects

Sitting distribution pressure is a useful ergonomic parameter for the study of sitting behavior. This paper presents the development of a piezoresistive pressure distribution sensor for sitting analysis using a matrix configuration of electrodes for the measurement. The sensor consisted of 15x15 sensing points and was implemented using the piezoresistive property to convert the compressive force during sitting into varying resistance readings, before further calibration into pressure distribution image. The resulting image was subsequently interpolated to obtain the best possible image resolution. In the project, standard shapes were used to investigate the functions that provide the most appropriate image, which can be applied in interpolating the shape of a human's buttocks that facilitates sitting posture analysis.