The pitch and width of airline seats are crucial factors on the comfort of passengers. The aim of this study is to measure the comfort feeling of passengers regarding different widths and together with data from a previous study, to offer suggestions on the aircraft interior design. 311 participants were recruited and were asked to sit in 17-inch-wide and 18-inch-wide aircraft seats in a Boeing 737 fuselage for 10 min, respectively. Questionnaires on psychological comfort and overall discomfort, as well as an additional questionnaire on the discomfort of different body parts, were used to evaluate the comfort and discomfort experience of participants. Experiment results indicated that the comfort scores were significantly higher, and the discomfort scores were significantly lower for sitting in the 18-inch-wide seats than that of sitting in the 17-inch-wide seats. It was also found that rather than the buttock, the shoulders, knees, lower legs and feet contributed significantly to the reduction in overall discomfort by providing more space for movements. Regarding anthropometric measurements, participants with smaller hip-breadth felt more comfort while sitting the 18-inch-wide seat, which highlights the importance of the freedom of movement. By synthesizing the results of a previous study on the relations of the seat pitch and comfort, it was found that given the same amount of additional floor area, widening the seat is more effective on comfort than increasing the pitch. Relevance to industry: This discovery might be useful for the airline industry for a more effective and efficient usage of floor area.

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Fast, accurate and low-cost 3D scans are the key in designing personalized products. In this paper, using close-range photogrammetry technique, we aim at finding the “just enough” number of cameras and their spatial configurations for a full 3D reconstruction of the human hand. Given an object, we establish a mathematical model to describe the 3D constructible ratio based on the field of the view and the depth of field of each camera, as well as the visibility of each part of the object in the view of each camera. Furthermore, we introduce spatial constrains to arrange cameras along two rings for: 1) solving the problem of the large number of parameters in the unconstrained optimization, and 2) the feasibility and flexibility in the construction. Based on the found number of cameras and the spatial configuration of each camera, a prototype scanner was built to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The mean absolute error between the 3D scan of a 3D printed hand and its original CAD model was found to be 0.38mm, which is smaller than that (0.52mm) of using the conventional setup. Besides, the distribution of errors is smaller as well, which implicates a better full 3D reconstruction of the scanned hand.@en

2D coil design limits the use of wireless power transfer (WPT) in many products with freeform outer shapes. In this paper, enabled by 3D printed electronics, we propose a systematic approach to design and fabricate 3D coils for WPT. Based on the circular spiral and rectangular spiral patterns, 3D receiver and transmitter coils can be generated on an arbitrarily selected region of a product and its offset, respectively. Mathematical models are proposed to estimate the self-inductance and the mutual-inductance of the 3D arbitrarily shaped coils for 3D WPT. This leads to a new design approach of a 3D WPT system. Several sets of 3D printed WPT systems were designed, simulated, and prototyped to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design approach as well as the mathematical models. The calculation speed of the proposed mathematical models is 30 times faster than the simulation, and compared with the measurement results, the calculation results have mean absolute errors of 2.63% and 4.45% regarding the self- and the mutual-inductance, where the simulation results have mean absolute errors of 1.20% and 2.38%, respectively. Measurements also indicate that with a 5V input, the prototypes are able to deliver 1-watt power at an efficiency ranging between 20.9% and 25.3%. It was concluded that the proposed approach is feasible and promising for designing and manufacturing WPT using 3D printed electronics.

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In the past decade, wireless power transfer enabled many new applications. However, most designs of transmitter and receiver coils are 2D, which limits the possibilities of integrating them to more applications. In this paper, based on the Qi standard, we proposed a design of 3D coils by focusing on the 3D geometry of the coil, modelling, simulation and manufacturing. Using the 3D spiral transmitter coil and the receiver coil as an example, we present the mathematical model for WPT first. The performance of the model is then verified by FEM simulation. Three sets of 3D coils with different design parameters were prototyped by 3D printed electronics and measured against the model and the simulation results. Compared to the measurements, the model has average errors of 1.6%, 8.4% 8.5% regarding self-inductance, mutual-inductance and the coupling factor, where the simulation has average errors of 0.5%, 9.9% and 6.6%, respectively. Measurements also indicate that with a 5V input, the prototype is able to deliver 1-watt power at an average 20.5% efficiency without electromagnetic shielding. It was concluded that the proposed 3D coils designs are feasible and promising for WPT.@en