JCI Mannequin Meets Regional RQs

In the motorsports world, the term used is “homologation.” It means that a vehicle is certified for a given series.

It is pretty much the same way in developing production cars for not given series, but given markets. Markets have their own sets of standards that have to be met, which means that you just can’t develop something for country A and simply sell it in countries B and C, too.

One way that this is being cleverly addressed for the development of automotive seating is a hip-point mannequin developed by Johnson Controls that meets three standards: SAE J 826, GLORIA for EuroNCAP, and VDA 304. One mannequin. Three sets of standards.

Said Dr. Wilfried Beneker, vp of Engineering, product business unit Metals and Mechanisms, Johnson Controls Automotive Seating: “Until now, there was no single hip-point mannequin on the market that satisfied all three standards and our high requirements. Therefore, it made sense for our engineers to design their own mannequin.”The hip-point mannequin allows the position of the driver and passengers to be measured in prototypes and product cars, and then correlated back to the digital design plans.

It can be fitted with a head restraint measurement device (HRMD), which allows the measurement of the head in relation to the head restraint.

To calibrate the mannequin, it is fixtured, then measured with a coordinate measuring machine (CMM). 

Although it doesn’t exactly resemble a person, this mannequin developed by Johnson Controls allows determination of seating positions for seat and interior developments.