Front row module
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Solution Overview
Problem
Passenger seats with stowable displays and tray tables often require additional components and features that increase weight, posing mechanical hazards and weight challenges, especially in front row or bulkhead seating where standard stowage solutions are inadequate.
Innovation Solution
A stowable equipment apparatus for passenger seats featuring a storage module with a mounting plate, a pivotally coupled table arm, and a display arm that allows the display bracket to be stowed entirely above the seat bottom, eliminating the need for under-seat storage and reducing weight, while ensuring safe deployment and stowage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If stowable displays and tray tables are mounted to the rear of another passenger seat, then equipment is available to passengers, but additional components and features increase the weight of the seat
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the display bracket and tray table support structure into a single integrated arm assembly that pivots from the seat back. This merging of functions reduces the number of separate components needed, thereby reducing overall weight while still providing both display and tray table functionality to the passenger.
Solution Approach 2:
The arm assembly serves multiple functions: it supports the display unit, supports the tray table, and provides pivoting motion for both. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate mounting structures for each piece of equipment, reducing weight while maintaining versatility.
2Adaptability or versatility
If stowable displays are mounted in front row or bulkhead seating without adjacent support structures, then equipment can be provided to passengers, but additional components and features increase the weight of the seat
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the display bracket and tray table support structure into a single integrated arm assembly that pivots from the seat back. This merging of functions reduces the number of separate components needed, thereby reducing overall weight while still providing both display and tray table functionality to the passenger.
Solution Approach 2:
The arm assembly serves multiple functions: it supports the display unit, supports the tray table, and provides pivoting motion for both. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate mounting structures for each piece of equipment, reducing weight while maintaining versatility.
3Ease of operation
If the display unit is rotated up for use from the doghouse, then the monitor is accessible to the passenger, but mechanical hazards such as pinch points and impact dangers occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the display unit from the traditional doghouse location below the seat and relocates it to be supported by the arm assembly that pivots from the seat back. This extraction eliminates the pinch points and impact dangers associated with rotating a monitor from beneath the seat, while still allowing the display to be positioned in front of the passenger for viewing.
Solution Approach 2:
The arm assembly acts as an intermediary between the seat structure and the display unit, providing a controlled pivoting mechanism that avoids direct contact between the passenger and moving parts. The arm assembly mediates the motion to eliminate hazardous pinch points while maintaining accessibility.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution provides a lightweight, safe, and cost-effective mechanism for stowing and deploying displays and tray tables within a narrow storage module, minimizing hazards and weight, and enabling efficient use in seats without adjacent support structures.
Implementation Method 1
a table arm pivotally coupled to the mounting plate and movable between a table stowed position and a table deployed position, the table arm supporting a table surface
Implementation Method 2
a display arm pivotally coupled to the mounting plate at a pivot point and movable between a display stowed position and a display deployed position
Data Source
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AI summary
Described is a stowable display apparatus (200) suitable for stowing a display, such as an in-flight entertainment monitor, in a storage module (110) located above a spreader or a seat bottom of a passenger seat (102). The stowable display apparatus can include an arm (228, 236) pivotally coupled to a mounting plate (222) at a pivot point (250) that is located above the spreader or seat bottom and proximate the forward end of the seat (102), thus enabling a display bracket of the arm to pivot upwards and out of an armrest assembly before rotating into a deployed position. The display arm (228, 236) can provide an easy, safe, and low-cost mechanism for stowing and deploying a display. The thin profile of the display arm allows a storage module (110) two inches wide or less to stow both a display and a table surface, each independently deployable and stowable irrespective of the other's position.