Testing new car seats is a hard job, but someone’s gotta do it, or something in this case, a special robotic bottom developed at Ford’s European headquarters in Cologne, Germany.
Created to move like a human bottom, ‘Robutt’ (a cheeky name, indeed) learns to get into and out of cars the same way as real human users, thus testing the wear and tear of materials.
Ford claims that their new robot sits on a seat 25,000 times in just three weeks, which basically tests a decade of use, and it does so without ruining its pants. All puns aside, the Robutt was first used to test the seats of the latest Fiesta supermini, and after achieving satisfactory results, it will now be put to practice on all Ford vehicles in Europe.
“From the first moment we get into a car, the seat creates an impression of comfort and quality”, commented one of Ford’s durability engineers, Svenja Froehlich. “Previously, we used pneumatic cylinders that simply moved up and down. With the ‘Robutt’, we are now able to replicate very accurately how people really behave.”
Besides detailing the robot that doesn’t steal anyone’s job, the Michigan-based automotive giant has also revealed the way it functions, by releasing a video.
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