The present invention relates generally to vehicle seat suspension. More particularly, the invention relates to a vehicle seat suspension which incorporates a new and unique isolation system for reducing the transmission of horizontally directed forces to the seat occupant.
For many years, it has been common practice to provide vehicle seats with some form of “isolation” system. So called “fore and aft” isolators have been employed to reduce the undesirable effects of forces inputted to the seat from the front or back. So too, “lateral” isolators have been used for the same purpose with respect to forces input from the sides of the vehicle. Oftentimes, both fore/aft and lateral isolators are used together. The combined systems, however, are less than satisfactory. First they are relatively complex mechanically and are therefore expensive both to manufacture and install. Second, with space constraints becoming increasingly severe, these combined systems tend to present too high a profile. Lastly, they tend to react along the fore and aft or lateral axes and therefore do not react as effectively to angular inputs. It would be desirable therefore to provide a truly omni directional isolator that is simple in construction, inexpensive to manufacture, effective in attenuating forces input from all directions, and occupies a relatively small space envelope.