If you ever come across a chair that's strangely comfortable, it's probably my doing.

In my laboratory, we are also involved in developing things like chairs, shoes, and beds. You might wonder why a mechanical engineering lab works on chairs, so it's probably best if I start by explaining the circumstances. When I went to university, it was the era of developing and introducing industrial robots, and research on the human arm was actively being conducted. With the simple motivation that if everyone else was working on arms, I would work on legs, I began researching walking machines. However, I was made to realize just how ingeniously the walking systems of animals and humans are designed. This led me to pursue what is known as "body engineering" for over 20 years, exploring the mechanical necessities and principles of motion that answer questions like, "Why do humans have this shape?"

Through this research, I have come to understand various things. Based on this understanding, when I looked at conventional product development methods, I began to realize that something was not quite right. Conventional product development tries to standardize and normalize products based on the average values from data collected on many different people's bodies. However, this also means that if you deviate from the average, the product won't fit, ultimately resulting in something that fails to satisfy many people. In contrast, by starting from mechanical principles, we have been able to calculate, for example, how the shape of the human spine relates to chair preferences and how to support it to achieve a comfortable state.

The commercialization of products based on this idea has already begun in various fields, such as welfare equipment and automobiles with futuristic, newly conceived seats. In fact, concept cars have even been exhibited at motor shows.