- The KUKA Occubot operates over five days, simulating a decade’s worth of sitting.
- These robots also slide and twist in the seat to torture-test the heated systems.
- An onboard camera system allows the robots to review progress independently.
Have you ever wondered how carmakers and suppliers test their seats to ensure they can endure years of abuse? Well, Jaguar Land Rover provided us with a glimpse of just how it does it, and it’s all thanks to four dedicated robots that simulate your butt and back pressed against the seat thousands of times.
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The robots, known as the KUKA Occubots, can exert forces of more than 800 newtons, or approximately 82 kg, on each new seat design up to 25,000 times. The robots do this in a matter of just five days, simulating upwards of a decade’s worth of sitting and moving. Using robots is definitely a lot easier than recruiting humans to conduct testing like this.
Read: A New Look Can’t Hide Just How Old This Land Rover Really Is
JLR also uses these robots to test out the resilience of its heated seats. Over 25 days, the robot will slide and twist in the seat, ensuring that the heated systems remain fully functional, regardless of how much abuse they have to endure. The robots also play an important role in verifying how quickly different foams respond to different body types.
Unlike humans, these robots don’t need time to rest and recuperate. They can operate 24/7 and are able to automatically review their progress and investigate failures thanks to onboard cameras.
“Settling into your seat is one of the first experiences when entering one of our vehicles,” JLR executive director of product engineering, Thomas Mueller said. “Comfort is critical to luxury, so it’s a make-or-break moment for our clients and they expect a consistently comfortable ride over the life of their vehicle.”
“We’ve invested in robots to work alongside our expert engineers and rigorously test every aspect of our seat materials in super quick time. Automation like this is a vital part of our comprehensive vehicle quality component testing programme, which helps us review vehicle elements over a lifetime of usage and in the most extreme environments.”
These seat tests are conducted across the full Jaguar Land Rover lineup, including models from Range Rover, Defender, Jaguar, and Discovery. So if your next luxury SUV feels just right from day one, you might have a tireless robot to thank for that.
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