Vehicle Seat With System for Facilitating Relieving of Fatigue of Person Sitting on the Seat

• US 20090236883A1
• Filed: 11/19/2008
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TS Tech Company Limited
• Original Assignee: TS Tech Company Limited
• Inventors: Sugiyama, Shinji
• Granted Patent: US 7,828,379 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 297/217.100
• CPC Class Codes: A61H 2201/0149 Seat or chair
• CPC Class Codes: A61H 2201/5084 Acceleration sensors
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/0276 reaction to emergency situations, e.g. crash
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/976 massaging systems

Abstract

There is disclosed a vehicle seat provided with a system for facilitating relieving of fatigue of an occupant on the vehicle seat, the vehicle seat including a seat back, the system comprising an occupant'"'"'s body-motion promoting means 6 provided in an interior of the seat back 1 for repeatedly locally pressing the occupant on the vehicle seat, to thereby promote blood circulation of the occupant, a lateral acceleration sensor 8 provided in the interior of the seat back 1 for detecting accelerations that are applied in right and left lateral directions relative to a vehicle, and an acceleration-distinction control circuit provided in the interior of the seat back 1 for causing the body-motion promoting means 6 to be maintained in a drivable state according when an acceleration detected by the lateral acceleration sensor 8 is in a predetermined value range, for causing drive of the body-motion promoting means to be once stopped when the lateral acceleration becomes an excessive value exceeding an upper limit of the predetermined value range during the drive of the body-motion promoting means, and for returning the body-motion promoting means to the drivable state when the lateral acceleration drops toward the predetermined value range from the excessive value.

Claims

1. A vehicle seat provided with a system for facilitating relieving of fatigue of an occupant sitting on the vehicle seat, the vehicle seat including a seat back;

the system comprising;

an occupant'"'"'s body-motion promoting means provided in an interior of the seat back for repeatedly locally pressing the occupant on the vehicle seat, to thereby promote blood circulation of the occupant;

a lateral acceleration sensor provided in the interior of the seat back for detecting accelerations that are applied in right and left lateral directions relative to a vehicle; and

an acceleration-distinction control circuit provided in the interior of the seat back for causing the body-motion promoting means to be maintained in a drivable state when an acceleration detected by the lateral acceleration sensor is in a predetermined value range, for causing drive of the body-motion promoting means to be once stopped when the lateral acceleration becomes an excessive value exceeding an upper limit of the predetermined value range during the drive of the body-motion promoting means, and for returning the body-motion promoting means to the drivable state when the lateral acceleration drops toward the predetermined value range from the excessive value.

2. A vehicle seat according to claim 1, wherein the acceleration-distinction control circuit is configured so as to judge the accelerations on the basis of variation in a voltage value, according to the accelerations detected by the lateral acceleration sensor.

3. A vehicle seat according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the lateral acceleration sensor is provided in the interior of the seat back so as to be arranged at a position positionally corresponding to the ninth thoracic vertebrae of the occupant on the vehicle seat.