Whole-body vibration is an important problem facing operators of off-road vehicles. Research has shown that operators exposed to low-frequency whole-body vibration can experience temporary and even permanent injuries. One solution to this problem is to develop an active seat capable of canceling the vibrations felt by the operator. Several passive, semi-active, active, and fully active seats have been designed and built to address this problem. Furthermore, controllers have been developed to optimize the seat performance. Vibration cancellation seating systems seem to be a promising and practical way to reduce the effects of whole-body vibration. To extend developments in this area, a Hyper-Active seat has been designed and built at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The seat utilizes a 3 Revolute-Prismatic-Revolute (RPR) parallel manipulator design which allows for the independent control of the vertical, horizontal and pitch angle directions. The seat is powered using three hydraulic actuators which are controlled using MATLAB's Simulink, xPC Target, and Real-Time Workshop. Controllers were developed to control the position of the seat, as well as cancel unwanted vibration. To test the performance of the Hyper-Active seat, the system identification of the seat was undertaken using open-loop forcing functions. The seat was evaluated in each degree of freedom to understand the potential of the seat to cancel harmful vibration. In addition to reducing harmful vibrations, the seat can double as a safety seat to reduce injuries during a frontal collision. If the front edge of the seat bottom can be raised very quickly, then the forward motion of the passenger can be reduced during a crash. An optimal method for performing this motion is developed.

Car accidents happens daily, and it is very important to protect all involved in a carno matter the age. Persons that are old enough and can take care of themselves, usescar seat belts to be protected in traffic. A child, however, must be placed andfastened in a safety seat by a parent or another caregiver, to be fully protected. Children that are correctly secured in safety seats have a 2.7 times bigger chance tosurvive a car crash without serious injuries compared to unstrained children (Berget al., 2000; WHO,2004). Regardless tests and safety seats that are available ontoday’s market, there are still issues that needs to be eliminated. Daily users of thisproduct are a good starting point since these people want a safe seat for their childthat can be easy to install and affordable; and they can best tell what issues theyencounter. Based on several scientific articles in a combination with interviews andobservations, issues with the safety seats could be confirmed. The primary issue isthe seat belt that is attached to the safety seat. Children can develop a habit ofwriggling out of the belt in safety seats. There are belt collectors available on themarket which holds the shoulder belts in place. In this way, it is harder for thechildren to slide out of the belt and helps to keep the belt properly positioned(BeSafe, 2018). Instead of having this as an accessory, it has been considered in thebelt that have been developed. Another issue is that the belt is complicated tofastened since two straps has to be simultaneously clicked in the belt buckle. If thisis done incorrectly, the belt cannot be fastened, and it takes time to try it again. Tomake this easier, two straps and the strap between the child's leg will be fastenedseparately in a seat buckle each. In this way, parents and other caregivers will beable to fasten the belt easy and properly. They will also be sure that the child issafely fastened and will minimize injury during an accident or another situation.

Every year 9000 children are estimated to die in traffic accidents in China. Fast motorization of the country in combination with low usage of child restraint system’s (CRS’s), are the two contributing factors to this alarming number. The vision of this thesis is to increase the usage of CRS’s in China, by understanding why the users are using the CRS and why the non-users are not using. The behavioural methodology Switch was used to investigate what positive behaviours could be copied and implemented in a larger scale to increase the usage. Interviews were performed with 30 users and 30 non-users in tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 cities on the east coast of China. The main findings from the interviews showed that the reasons for not using was that the parents found the CRS complicated to install and to use, that it took too much space, that they did not know the benefits with a CRS and found it unnecessary and that they could not convince their children to sit in the CRS. Surprisingly most non-users already owned a CRS, but stopped using it. The users were using because they had experienced the CRS from abroad or got knowledge from other sources such as media or friends. Some parents were using because of a practicality issues such as the trouble to hold a heavy 3-year old child during a long trip. The behaviours chosen to represent the users for further work were learning from others, selection support, how to install, how to persist, and how to pay the knowledge of the CRS forward. The behaviour of the users was copied and implemented in a strategy consisting of the five parts above. The strategy is an interactive webpage with a close linkage to social networks to encourage sharing, and with a supporting poster- and bumper sticker campaign for spreading. The final product of the thesis work is a campaign including a fully working prototype of the webpage, which will be handed over to Volvo Cars for verification internally to make sure that the concept supports the different parts in a suitable and correct way before a public implementation. Material for poster and bumper stickers is also a part of the final delivery.

Introdução - Para minimizar mortes e lesões entre crianças passageiras de automóveis existem os Assentos de Segurança Infantil (ASI), que são pouco utilizados ou utilizados erroneamente. Recente lei brasileira normatiza o uso de ASI e ressalta a necessidade de informações estatísticas, donde surgiu a intenção de estudar erros utilização de ASI com base em recente dissertação de mestrado que apontou uso de ASI por 36,1 por cento das crianças matriculadas em creches em Maringá. Não há dados brasileiros publicados quanto a erros de utilização de ASI. Objetivo - Analisar erros de utilização de ASI por crianças matriculadas usuários de creches em Maringá e fatores relacionados. Métodos - Estudo observacional transversal de coleta de dados prospectiva e eixo analítico retrospectivo. Resultados 42,7 por cento das crianças apresentavam erros de utilização. O modelo de regressão logística evidenciou maiores chances de erros na presença de duas ou mais crianças no veículo (OR = 5,10 com p = 0,007) e com menores níveis de escolaridade e renda dos pais (média renda e escolaridade OR = 7,00 com p = 0,003 e baixa renda e escolaridade OR = 3,40 com p = 0,03). Discussão Os dados são coerentes com publicações internacionais. Há expectativa dos efeitos da recente lei brasileira sobre uso de ASI, porém sabe-se que além da lei, há necessidade de estratégias educativas e facilitadoras de acesso aos ASI / Introduction - Minimize deaths and injuries among children who are passengers of vehicles with Child Safety Seat (CSS) which are not usually or wrongly used. A current Brazilian law regulates the use of CSS and enhances the need for information statistics, from which came the intention of studying errors in the use of CSS, based on a recent Master degree dissertation that pointed out that it is used in 36.1 per cent of the cases of children enrolled in day care centers in Maringá, Brazil. There is no data in Brazil published about the misuse of CSS. Objective - Analyze errors of CSS use by children who attend day care centers in Maringá and related factors. Methods - Observational and cross-sectional study of prospective data collection and retrospective and analytical axis. Results - 42.7 per cent of children demonstrated errors of use. The logistics regression model determined greater possibilities of errors in case of presence of two or more children in the vehicle (OR = 5.10, p = 0.007) and lower levels of parents´ education and income (average income and education OR = 7.00, p = 0.003 and low income and education OR = 3.40, p = 0.03). Discussion - The data is consistent to the international publications. There is an expectation about the effects of the current Brazilian law on the use of CSS, but it is known that besides the law, educational and facilitating strategies to the access to the CSS are necessary

Introdução - Para minimizar mortes e lesões entre crianças passageiras de automóveis existem os Assentos de Segurança Infantil (ASI), que são pouco utilizados ou utilizados erroneamente. Recente lei brasileira normatiza o uso de ASI e ressalta a necessidade de informações estatísticas, donde surgiu a intenção de estudar erros utilização de ASI com base em recente dissertação de mestrado que apontou uso de ASI por 36,1 por cento das crianças matriculadas em creches em Maringá. Não há dados brasileiros publicados quanto a erros de utilização de ASI. Objetivo - Analisar erros de utilização de ASI por crianças matriculadas usuários de creches em Maringá e fatores relacionados. Métodos - Estudo observacional transversal de coleta de dados prospectiva e eixo analítico retrospectivo. Resultados 42,7 por cento das crianças apresentavam erros de utilização. O modelo de regressão logística evidenciou maiores chances de erros na presença de duas ou mais crianças no veículo (OR = 5,10 com p = 0,007) e com menores níveis de escolaridade e renda dos pais (média renda e escolaridade OR = 7,00 com p = 0,003 e baixa renda e escolaridade OR = 3,40 com p = 0,03). Discussão Os dados são coerentes com publicações internacionais. Há expectativa dos efeitos da recente lei brasileira sobre uso de ASI, porém sabe-se que além da lei, há necessidade de estratégias educativas e facilitadoras de acesso aos ASI / Introduction - Minimize deaths and injuries among children who are passengers of vehicles with Child Safety Seat (CSS) which are not usually or wrongly used. A current Brazilian law regulates the use of CSS and enhances the need for information statistics, from which came the intention of studying errors in the use of CSS, based on a recent Master degree dissertation that pointed out that it is used in 36.1 per cent of the cases of children enrolled in day care centers in Maringá, Brazil. There is no data in Brazil published about the misuse of CSS. Objective - Analyze errors of CSS use by children who attend day care centers in Maringá and related factors. Methods - Observational and cross-sectional study of prospective data collection and retrospective and analytical axis. Results - 42.7 per cent of children demonstrated errors of use. The logistics regression model determined greater possibilities of errors in case of presence of two or more children in the vehicle (OR = 5.10, p = 0.007) and lower levels of parents´ education and income (average income and education OR = 7.00, p = 0.003 and low income and education OR = 3.40, p = 0.03). Discussion - The data is consistent to the international publications. There is an expectation about the effects of the current Brazilian law on the use of CSS, but it is known that besides the law, educational and facilitating strategies to the access to the CSS are necessary

The subject of this thesis is to design safety components for the Formula Student car. The aim is to handle the driver’s safety proposals regarding the competition rules. The main point of interest is focused on the impact attenuator issue, which is designed and tested by appropriate method. In addition are designed other security features such as seat belts, seat belts installation and driver equipment are.