Chairs and seats – Movable back – Tiltable
Patent
1981-11-18
1984-09-11
Lyddane, William E.
Chairs and seats
Movable back
Tiltable
297330, 297346, B60N 102
Patent
active
044706324
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a vehicle seat slide support system and is particularly concerned with a seat slide arrangement which enables a variety of adjustments to be made to the position of a seat and its configuration within a vehicle.
One object of the invention is to provide a seat slide unit which may be of lightweight construction and which may be used in pairs, one to each side of a vehicle seat. The seat slide arrangement may provide for adjustment of the height of the seat, its fore and aft position, the angle which the seat squab makes with the floor of the vehicle, and for the adjustment of the rake angle of the seat back portion to the seat squab.
It is an object of the invention to provide in such a seat slide mechanism means for the manual adjustment of one or more of such factors and/or means for motorised adjustment of such factors.
It is an object of the invention to provide means whereby the motorised adjustment of such factors may be controlled through the medium of an electronic processor such as a micro-processor in accordance with programmed instructions for the processor in response to control requests from a user. It is a further object to provide means for pre-storing data relating to a particular seat position and configuration so that the microprocessor may move the seat to such position and configuration on demand by the user.
A feature of the invention lies in the provision of an arrangement in which common parts may be used in the manually adjusted and the motorised form of the seat.
Accordingly in one aspect the present invention provides a slide assembly for a vehicle seat comprising a first slide member arranged to support or form part of the seat squab structure, co-operating with a further slide member arranged to be mounted on the floor of the vehicle.
The arrangement is such that the first slide member may slide or move over the second slide member to achieve fore and aft adjustment of the vehicle seat.
In an adaptation the further slide member is provided at the front and/or rear ends with mounting means by which it may be mounted on the vehicle floor and adjusted in height relative to the vehicle floor.
In a further adaptation the first slide member is provided with pivotal mounting means at the rear end arranged to carry a seat back portion in such a fashion that the angle of the back of the seat squab may be adjusted.
In such an arrangement the slide assembly is therefore adapted for manual adjustment of the fore and aft direction, to height of the seat at either or both ends of the slide assembly and of the angle of the back portion.
In a further arrangement the same basic components are arranged for an electric motor drive to make those adjustments. Preferably such electric motor drive comprises a single electric motor and can be selectively coupled to the various adjustment drive functions by way of an electromagnetic clutch. Preferably the control of the motor drive and the driven functions is by means of a microprocessor. Preferably the microprocessor is provided with means to store details of adjusted positions of the seat, and to move the seat to conform to those stored details in response to a user command.
Preferably the slide assembly is arranged so that identical assemblies can be utilised on either side of a vehicle seat, in a pair, with suitable spacing members between the two to form a cohesive structure.
By this means it is possible to provide in effect a series of basic components from which various degrees of sophistication can be built into a vehicle seat support slide arrangement; starting from providing only a fore and after adjustment, progressively adding capabilities such as adjustment of the height of the front and rear end singularly or together; adjustment of the seat back angle, motorised adjustment of such features, and then finally the motorised adjustment of such features under the control of a microprocessor.
In a preferred embodiment the invention provides a slide mechanism for a vehicle seat comprising an outer slide member of genera
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Binder Mark W.
Lyddane William E.
TI Cox Limited
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