Keynote speakers
luca dusini
Luca Dusini is currently responsible for the development of the seats in Ferrari. In addition to that, he is also in charge of the performance of the external and internal trims (seat comfort, lighting, kinematic performance).
In the past he covered various roles in the field of research and development, working for Ferrari and other automotive OEMs. He was responsible for integration of components (body, suspension systems, trims), responsible for vehicle dynamics, ride comfort and CAE manager for the suspension system.
Seat design in Ferrari
Seat is one of the first components which comes in contact with the customer for many reasons: style, quality of the materials, comfort. For this reason, Ferrari has developed and deepened these aspects connecting the subjective perception to objective measurements. Many methodologies have been developed for this: simulation of body pressure maps and H point position with correlation with experimental measurements; analysis of the main root causes of wrinkles in leather and possible solutions; transfer function analysis of the seats and comfort vibration. Simulation is becoming more and more important in the development of a car in order to reduce costs and timing and all these methodologies are crucial for building up the best car as a Ferrari must be.
lorenzo picinali
Lorenzo Picinali is a Reader at Imperial College London, where he leads the Audio Experience Design team. His research focuses on spatial acoustics and immersive audio, looking at perceptual and computational matters, as well as at real life applications. In the past years Lorenzo has worked on projects related to spatial hearing and rendering, hearing aid technologies and, more in general, acoustical virtual and augmented reality. He has also been active in the field of eco-acoustic monitoring, designing autonomous recorders and using audio to better understand the impact humans have on remote ecosystems.
System-to-user and user-to-system adaptations - could it work beyond immersive audio?
Within the immersive audio domain (i.e. the simulation of life-like sounds and soundscapes), there is a strong amount of evidence supporting two approaches that can be followed when dealing with personalisation; (1) the rendering system can be adapted to the acoustic and perceptual properties of the user, and/or (2) the user can adapt to the rendering features of the system.
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The talk starts with an initial overview of the basic mechanisms of human sound source localisation, introducing expressions such as localisation cues and interaural differences, and the concept of the Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF), which is the basis of most 3D spatialisation systems in VR. More complex concepts are then introduced, such as HRTF selection (system- to-user adaptation) and HRTF accommodation (user-to-system adaptation). State-of-the-art HRTF modelling and selection methods are presented, looking at various approaches and at how these have been evaluated. Similarly, the process of HRTF accommodation is detailed, with a case study employed as an example. The potentials of these two approaches are then discussed, considering their combined use in a practical context, as well as introducing a few open challenges for future research.
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After this initial overview, I will suggest a few reflections on the possibility of employing a similar approach to the domain of comfort research. For example, could comfort be improved by training drivers to adapt to different vibro-tactile and haptic conditions, without modifying the physical characteristics of the vehicle?