Watch Ford’s Bottom Simulator Sweat Its Butt Off in Fiesta Active Seats

The downside of hot summer days is sweat, and lots of it. Regardless of the ways one produces it, sweat smells funny, is at times sticky and can damage the things it touches over long periods of times. And that includes car seats.

Being in the auto business for a while now, we know carmakers have tons of ways of testing a car and its components. But have you ever wondered how – and if – cars are being tested for their ability to withstand liters upon liters of sweat?

Not cars per se, but car seats. Ever since air conditioning has become commonplace in cars, the amount of sweat humans generate while sitting their behinds in car seats has probably decreased dramatically.

But that doesn’t mean sweaty bottoms don’t make contact with car seats. There are tons of great outdoor activities that that generate tons of the stuff right before getting behind the wheel. And that translates into sweat on the car seats.

For some reason, Ford decided this week to show the world how it tests the effects of sweat on the seatsof its cars.

Did you know, for instance, that Ford has a specialized robot that does nothing more than to simulate a human bottom?

Well, it exists, and it even has a name: Robutt. Robutt is used to perform what Ford calls the sweaty bottom test.

Robutt is a Kuka robot fitted with wet makeshift butt cheeks, heated to about the average human body temperature. The system feeds about half of liter of water – not exactly a replica of human body sweat – to the seat surface.

Each of the seats being tested and sat on by the wet behind 7,500 times, a number Ford says represent about a decade or so of use.

You can watch the Robutt in action in the video attached below.