Productionisation of advanced modular passenger autonomous seating
The automotive industry is being encouraged to cut emissions from cars, with OEMs threatened with penalties if they do not meet targets. One way of achieving this is to make vehicles lighter.  Reducing the weight of a small family car by 5% can lead to increased fuel efficiency of 2% . Conventional car seats can weigh up to 35kg each , whereas Gordon Murray Design’s composite iStream® seat weighs only 12kg, potentially a huge weight saving.  The manufacture of composite car seats has traditionally been expensive due to their unsuitability for mass production but the revolutionary iStream® manufacturing process overturns this convention, utilising a composite sandwich panel structure and metallic frame combination, which costs no more than a conventional car seat. 

Reducing the weight is also of benefit to electric vehicles (EVs) as well as internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, lower weight  means lower emissions and for EVs it means greater range for a given battery size or a smaller (cheaper) battery for a given range, both of which are very desirable for customers.  

The principal objective of the The Productionisation of Advanced Modular Passenger Autonomous Seating (PAMPAS) project is to fully understand all aspects of the industrialisation process to ensure the already technically proven seating system can enter into series production with a commercially viable proposition.