The present invention concerns a method of positioning a seat in an apparatus and a device implementing the method.
In many situations, a user needs to be located in an apparatus in a relatively precise position in order to be able to make use of that apparatus. This is the case, in particular, with vehicles such as automobiles or aircraft in which a driver or pilot needs to be located in a practical position in order to have easy access to the various controls of that vehicle and have a proper view of the outside (front downward view, side view). Yet it is rare for vehicles to be designed only for a single pilot. Thus, a vehicle is generally equipped with a generic seat which needs to be adjusted in order to achieve an appropriate position for the piloting. Such generic seats allow pilots of different body types to use the same vehicle. These seats generally allow a height adjustment (i.e., along a vertical axis of the vehicle) or a depth adjustment (i.e., along a horizontal axis of the vehicle).
Certain vehicles have devices allowing a precise positioning of the pilot. This is the case with certain aircraft such as the one described in relation to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 illustrates schematically an example of a vehicle in which the invention is realized. This vehicle is an airplane 1. The airplane 1 has a first horizontal axis, or x-axis, passing through the fore and aft of the airplane 1, a second horizontal axis, or y-axis, perpendicular to the x-axis, and a vertical axis not shown, or z-axis, perpendicular to the x- and y-axes.
FIG. 2 illustrates schematically a cockpit 10 of the airplane 1 known in the prior art. The cockpit 10 comprises a first console 100 having display units showing, in particular, the navigation parameters of the airplane 1, a second console 104 containing, in particular, the control units for controlling the power of the engines of the airplane 1, two control units 102A and 102B such as handles, and two seats 103A and 103B. In this example, each seat can be adjusted along the x-axis and the z-axis. The position of the seat along the y-axis is fixed on account of the need to be positioned in an axis for display of primary flight parameters.
The cockpit 10 comprises, in front of the first console 100, a device 101 used to position the seats 103A and 103B so that each pilot can be ideally situated in the cockpit 10. The device 101 comprises three elements 101A, 101B and 101C. A pilot is properly situated in the cockpit (i.e., the pilot's seat is well adjusted) if, when seated in his seat, he is looking at the element of the device 101 closest to him (i.e., element 101C), which hides one of the other two elements of the device 101.
FIG. 3 shows schematically the device 101 used in the cockpit 10 to position one of the seats 103A and 103B. In the example of FIG. 3, a pilot is in the process of adjusting the seat 103A. The element 101C hides nearly all of the element 101B. When the element 101C hides all of the element 101B, the seat 103A is considered to be properly adjusted. To obtain such an alignment of the elements 101C and 101B (or 101C and 101A), the pilot needs to manipulate control units such as buttons or joysticks (not shown) in order to modify the position of the seat 103A (or 103B). This method of positioning may be tedious and may result in wrong positioning.
It is desirable to improve these drawbacks of the prior art. In particular, it is desirable to propose a method which enables an automatic positioning of a seat of an apparatus in dependence on the person who is seated on it. For example, it is desirable to propose a method which enables positioning a seat of a vehicle such that the pilot of that vehicle is ideally situated in the vehicle.