The REFLECT project and the implementation of a seat adaptation system in an automotive environment

REFLECT project aimed at developing new concepts and means for pervasive-adaptive systems. The “reflective approach” puts together different know-hows in affective and physiological computing, software engineering, physics and pragmatic expertise into a unique endeavour to design and develop user-centric systems that control the specific environment and react relative to users’ emotional, cognitive and physical situation. REFLECT’s core philosophy is to mimic the natural process of adaptation by implementing a biocybernetic loop that senses, diagnoses and analyses the user situation in a concrete settings and reacts accordingly. To show how these concepts have been put into practice, the document describes in detail how the seat adaptation system of the “Comfort Loop” has been developed in an automotive environment. After giving a brief overview of the project as a whole, the paper deals with the definition of sitting comfort and discomfort, then it presents the idea of the seat adaptation system, whose implementation in a real environment is extensively reported together with the description and discussion of the experimental phase. In the last section comments from the final review process are reported, and new lines of research deploying REFLECT findings are outlined.