Sitting Postures and Activities in Autonomous Vehicles – New Requirements towards Occupant Safety

In the context of autonomous driving, new possibilities for passenger positions and occupation arise. Vehicle concepts provide more degrees of freedom for seating configurations and different activities as a passenger, leading to a need for advanced protection principles. The H2020-project OSCCAR analyses occupant safety requirements for highly automated vehicles (HAV) and defines technological developments necessary for novel safety principles. In order to understand the potential of novel sitting postures and activities in the context of autonomous driving, an empirical user study was conducted to examine the impact of different scenarios on preferred sitting postures in a simulated automated driving situation. Results gave insights into detailed sitting postures that are most likely to be obtained by occupants in future use cases. The results serve as input to a test case matrix in order to design future occupant restraint principles.