The Technology!

The big picture

We want our shock absorber to adjust to every passenger so that they experience optimal safety. To find the person’s weight there will be sensors in the seat. These sensors are non-intrusive meaning they are not noticed by the user. The sensors are load cells with specially shaped metal parts with strain gauges. The strain gauges are resistors that change their resistance from the bending from the weight of the person. That resistance will be reported to a breakout board. The function of this board is to amplify the signals from the load cells, the sensors, and reports them to the micro-controller. The micro-controller is on the Arduino. Micro-controllers are thought of as a tiny computers. They can run small, simple software programs. It is beneficial for our design to use a micro-controller because they are very low powered but are fast enough to process data much faster than any human being can.

As a group, we will code in the Arduino IDE, integrated development environment, C code that will view the amplified signals from the breakout board and tell the adjustment knob on our shock absorber how many fluid escape ports to have open. An Arduino is the union between the digital world and mechanical parts, almost like a bridge. Arduinos are low powered and can draw energy from the seats; most cars seats are already powered. We will conduct testing to devise an equation that will know the best number of fluid escape ports to have open for the user. For example, a lighter person will have more ports open because their force on impact will be less than of a heavier passenger.