Can a car seat prevent road rage and sleepy drivers?

Drowsiness and road rage have been identified as two of the factors that contribute to road accidents. It’s easy enough to pull over when you’re getting sleepy, but when another driver aggravates you, it’s sometimes hard to take the high road.

Active Wellness TM

One company aims to change the driving experience with a smart seat for cars. Automotive parts manufacturer Faurecia Group (PSA Peugeot Citroën) is developing the Active WellnessTM seat with embedded sensors able to detect a driver or occupant’s heart and breathing rhythm and correlate that information to other data based on the most recent medical research. The end goal is to be able to deliver the necessary action for a driver and his passengers.

For instance, if the Active WellnessTM detect that the driver is getting drowsy or is stressed out, it will deliver a specific massage pattern as well as adjust the airflow via the seat’s ventilation to either wake or relax the driver, and make driving a more healthy experience.

Faurecia aims to collaborate with automobile manufacturers to help them configure the Active WellnessTM in their vehicles’ seating system.

The company aims to have the technology available in some car models as early as 2018.

This technology has the potential to make roads safer as it is able to adapt to the needs of each individual, which means it looks to consistently provide an optimized driving experience no matter who is behind the wheel. This concept seat will also be the first to offer a biometric sensing system that does not affect the comfort or visual aspect of the seat, and is also the first seating wellness system that manages both noise and vibrations for the driving environment to be able to deliver accurate feedback to mechanical, thermal, pneumatic and computer systems.

At the moment, the Active WellnessTM doesn’t have Internet connectivity implementations, but it’s hard to think that it won’t add these in the near future. A mobile app can be used to create specific massage patterns for car occupants. Also, the seat can be connected to the Internet itself so it can alert pre-selected people when you are getting sleepy or stressed. Additionally, connecting these seats would provide Faurecia with additional and ongoing data for product development and improvements.

This isn’t the first innovation that aims to address driving problems like drowsiness. Last year, Vigo Technologies, Inc. introduced its Bluetooth headset capable of detecting levels of alertness and nudge the wearer to keep from dozing off. The device was slated to come out September of last year, but that has been pushed back to October 2015.

Photo by Debs (ò‿ó)♪