Development of a new capacitive matrix for a steering wheel's pressure distribution measurement

Pressure distribution measurements are becoming increasingly important in the automotive field for ergonomic optimization of components like seats or steering wheel. Nowadays, traditional sensors shows several drawbacks such as response variation in time, low sensitivity and high level of intrusiveness. Moreover the great difficulty of carrying out dynamical analysis in the area of interest highly limits their use. A new type of matrix, now available, promises to overcome such problems, and it has been widely tested in the automotive field. The matrix is based on a series of condensers which vary the capacity depending on the pressure applied on their surface. The high sensitivity and the chance of monitoring pressure distribution with frequency contents up to 200 Hz make this tool particularly suitable for evaluating steering wheel's goodness effectiveness in an on-road test. Relevance to industry: The knowledge of the behavior of capacitive sensor matrix for pressure distribution at the operator's hand-car steering wheel interface may benefit automobile designers and manufacturers to evaluate steering wheel goodness and seat effectiveness perform through on-road tests and to evaluate the efficiency of the power steering mechanism. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.