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Ford Motor Company has developed a corporate engineering test procedure focused on the vibration transmissibility of the occupied automotive seat. The procedure allows Ford to assess, in a consistent manner, the performance of (1) prototype-level seats specific to new/future programs and (2) production-level competitive seats. As part of the procedure, a complete seat system is mounted to a human-rated platform using a dedicated fixture, engaged by persons matching specific anthropometric characteristics, and excited vertically, laterally, and fore-aft with external actuators under laboratory conditions. Johnson Controls is one of the few seat suppliers that have the equipment and expertise required to execute this procedure. Using Ford's procedure, the objective of this paper is to compare and contrast the test results, expressed both statistically and graphically as transfer functions, produced by these two independent facilities. Because of the proximity of the two laboratories, it was possible to use the same production level seat and the same occupants at both facilities. The results showed good agreement in all excitation directions. Based on the strength of these results, discussions concerning specific noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) and ride quality requirements, which Ford cascades to Johnson Controls on a program-by-program level, can begin from a common basis. The common understanding, while yielding a more efficient seat development process, should lead to more comfortable vehicles.

A vision guided robot for assembly is defined to be a robot/vision system that acquires robotic destination poses (location and orientation) by visual means so that the robot's end-effector can be positioned at the desired poses. In this paper, the robot/vision system consists of a stereo-pair of CCD array cameras mounted to the end-effector of a six-axis revolute robot arm.From a systems point of view, accuracy issues of the vision system, the robot, and the manufacturing requirements are considered for the development of automated calibration methodologies for local and global work volumes of the robot/vision system. Resulting accuracy of local calibration on the order of 1.5 mm is sufficient for many automotive assembly applications. Multiple component assembly and robotic fastening has been demonstrated with the developed vision guided robot.

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