FORM 2
THE PATENTS ACT 1970
(39 of 1970)
&
THE PATENTS RULES, 2003
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
(See Section 10; rule 13)
TITLE OF INVENTION
Adjustable Foot Rest In The Vehicles To Improve The Driving Comfort And Ergonomics Of The Driving Person


APPLICANTS
TATA MOTORS LIMITED, an Indian company
having its registered office at Bombay House,
24 Homi Mody Street, Hutatma Chowk,
Mumbai 400 001 Maharashtra, India

INVENTORS
Mrs. Charu Saxena and Mr.Amol Majgaonkar.
Both are Indian Nationals
of TATA MOTORS LIMITED an Indian company
having its registered office at Bombay House,
24 Homi Mody Street, Hutatma Chowk,
Mumbai 400 001 Maharashtra, India
PREAMBLE TO THE DESCRIPTION
The following specification describes the invention.


FIELD OF INVENTION
This invention relates to Adjustable Foot Rest in the vehicles to improve the driving comfort and ergonomics of the driving person and is specially applicable for Passenger Cars, where space is the limitation.
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
At present, virtual humans are used in the automotive industry especially for ergonomic analysis of a virtual car interior. However, interior design and ergonomics is only one aspect in the development process of a new car. Styling, active and passive security as well as aerodynamics also bias decisions in the development process of a new car.
The visibility of the surroundings from inside a car is a major security topic. The optimization of product designs are based on virtual prototypes, which has become increasingly important for meeting the growing cost and efficiency demands. In the development of a new car, security, ergonomics, styling and fuel efficiency are additional important factors in the design and decision process which have to be balanced carefully.
Virtual humans otherwise known as man models have already proven their potential and advantages in ergonomic simulation and analysis for those purposes. Now a days, automobile industries uses a man model to simulate different eye positions and visualize the field-of-view in a virtual environment to give an external observer a feedback on how a human would see the scene under the current conditions. The advantage of using a virtual human in a virtual environment such as a virtual 3D car model, is that many combinations and situations can be evaluated in less time and much earlier in the product development process. Thus, design problems can be detected sooner and optimizations to the design can be performed in a much more efficient way.
Another important feature of the system being developed is, that the field-of-view can be

visualized while the virtual human is performing some actions in the car, interactively performing the simulation can imitate all imaginable situations. Interactivity is another strength of the system is that the virtual human can be directly manipulated while the system visualizes in real-time what he sees.
Ergonomic analysis
The ergonomics of a car's interior depends on several influencing factors such as Seating position, variability and quality of the seats, Position and adjustability of the steering wheel. Reach ability and readability of gear shift, knobs and switches, Position and reach ability of pedals, Leg room, knee/steering-wheel interference, Head room and others.
The current practice of car builders and especially seat makers have to take drivers from 5'2" up to 6.2" foot into account, with constantly increasing the range otherwise the seats must be moveable for as close to a foot. While the steering wheel can be adjusted axially, the dashboard can not move along with it. Thus, optimizing an interior design is to find the best compromise for the variety of possible drivers plus maintaining the corporate identity in interior design.
Since, not all combinations can be evaluated with real test persons and physical mockups, virtual humans become more and more present. By placing a virtual human in different virtual designs and specifying test suites, a much broader set of alternative designs investigated in early stages of the design. Instead of subjective statements from some test persons, one has access to the whole database underlying the virtual human having optimized a design for reachability and comfort, new aspects, such as visibility come into play.
Referring to figure 1, the persons who are below the given height range, faces lots of problem to operate the foot controls like accelerator pedal, clutch pedal and brake pedal, out of these usage of accelerator pedal is very high, so the ankle angle(a) and Knee

angle(b) are the two important angles for ergonomics, also there are other parameters which are also dependant on these two angles. To control these two angles the Heel Point(3) and Ball of Foot (2) are the two important points taken into consideration. Due to packaging constraints the Ball of Foot (2) is fixed so, to reduce ankle angle(a), heel point (3) should be lift from floor and either it will depend on adjustment made by driving person or it should be correlated to seat travel for automatic adjustment.
The deficiency of the prior art problems are reduced by this disclosed invention which work as an adjustable foot.
OBJECTS OF INVENTION
The main object of this invention is to improve the overall ergonomics of driving person.
Yet another object of the invention is to improve Comfort condition of driving person which will reduce the accident cases.
Yet another important object of the invention is to reduce the limitations of vehicles otherwise, with same seat travel it will increase the applicability of vehicle for driving person.
Yet another object of the invention that it can be implemented by keeping the original design same or otherwise, Modification not required in foot control module.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION
The main object of this invention is to improve ergonomics of the driving person.
Basically the vehicle will be designed for the driving person's height range up to 6'2" with 95th percentile, also provided extra forward travel to seat so that it can compensate ±5", but this is also creating discomfort to the driving person.

Currently the passenger cars having seat adjuster, by which they can adjust the seat according to their comfort condition, but the travel of seat adjuster is fix so people who are not in the design range of ergonomics i.e. bellow 4'8" will suffer more by ankle and knee pain, so currently they use some cushion behind their back and they will adjust the heel position. But due to cushion they are not able to use the head rest and which intern cause pain in the neck bone.
Referring to fig. 1 and 3 according to existing ergonomics layout the heel point (3) as well as ball of foot (2) are already fixed for packaging. The ankle angle (a) is adjusted by raising or lowering the ball of foot (2) as well as Heel point (3), but ball of foot (2) is the fix constraint because it is on Pedal, so adjustments are made in the heel point (3) and then the ankle angle (a) was adjusted. This was achieved by introducing foot rest plate on floor with suitable operating mechanism. The footrest device width provide access to free movement of foot in Horizontal direction, i.e. along the length of vehicle.
So the users with different height can adjust the seat and footrest device according to their comfort conditions. This invention will give more comfort to driving person.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
Fig. 1 shows a Man Model Assembly with separate (manual) arrangement of footrest
adjustment
Fig.2 shows a Man Model Assembly with correlation of seat travel and footrest
adjustment.
Fig.3 shows a complete Man Model Assembly with important ergonomics parameters.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION AND ASSEMBLY PROCEDURE
Referring to fig. 1, shows the man model assembly (1) which gives the idea of comfort of actual human being, the centre point of accelerator assembly (7) match with the ball of

foot (2), the trajectory of accelerator pedal should not be disturbed at any condition. The footrest assembly (4) is provided below the heel point(3), the spring loaded knob is connected to the footrest assembly (4), which is pressed by driver and spring helps to make self adjustment of foot rest up to the heel point(3), so various height persons can adjust footrest assembly(4) according to their comfort conditions.
The foot rest assembly (4) provided on floor (6), this mechanism will give independent movement of foot rest assembly (4). Now it's difficult for all driving persons to determine the suitable height of footrest so this invention gives correlation between seat travel and footrest assembly (4) and hence give exact rise of foot rest assembly(4) for different passengers.
Referring to fig.2, shows the man model assembly (1) which gives the idea of comfort of actual human being. The centre point of accelerator assembly (7) was matched with the ball of foot (2), the trajectory of accelerator pedal was not disturbed at any condition. The footrest with actuator assembly (10) was provided below the heel point(3), the actuator assembly(lO) was mounted on floor(6). The master cylinder assembly with pipe and release pedal(9) was mounted on frame of seat assembly (8), and was connected to taper wedge assembly (11), in such a way that the taper edge at the extreme back of the seat was just touching the release pedal, and when seat traveled towards front side or accelerator pedal (7) side then release pedal was pressed due to the taper wedge. It build pressure in master cylinder assembly (9) and finally that pressure actuated the actuator assembly (10). The footrest was connected to actuator assembly (10), which actuated the piston in actuator assembly and moves it upward direction, which inurn actuated footrest assembly and finally the heel point (3) was adjusted.
Due to this correlation the proportionality can be maintain between seat travel and foot rest, so it will provide proper combination to Driving person.

The foregoing description is a specific embodiment of the present invention. It should be appreciated that this embodiment is described for purpose of illustration only, and that numerous alterations and modifications may be practiced by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. It is intended that all such modifications and alterations be included insofar as they come within the scope of the invention as claimed or the equivalents thereof.
Dated this 26th day of March 2009

(Karuna Goleria) of De PENNING & De PENNING
TATA Motors Limited By their Agent & Attorney