A generic evaluation methodology for advanced safety systems

Abstract

The increasing development and proliferation of advanced safety systems are closely linked with the use of sensors which detect both the vehicle's environment and the presence, positioning and characteristics of the vehicle occupant. The use of these sensors, together with appropriate actuators and corresponding algorithms, offer new potential for advanced safety systems to improve the primary and secondary safety of vehicles. Many existing test methods to evaluate the crash performance of a vehicle are unsuitable for the assessment of advanced safety systems because an evaluation of sensing performance and the influence on the driver is required, as well as the usual evaluation of the occupant crash protection. To meet this need, APROSYS work package 1.3 aims to develop a generic methodology to evaluate the technical performance of advanced safety systems. This paper presents the proposed methodology, which is currently being applied to a specific system in APROSYS work packages 1.3 and 6.5 in order to assess its applicability and inform refinements.

Keywords:

• generic advanced safety systems
• sensors
• evaluation methodology
• side impact
• pre-crash sensing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the APROSYS SP1 and SP6 consortium, especially the WP 1.3 partners for input and review of this paper and the WP 6.5 group for providing the application. For more information on the APROSYS project, please refer to www.aprosys.com.

The work reported in this publication was performed as part of the APROSYS IP and was financially supported in part by the European Commission under project (TIP3-CT-2004-506503), the UK Department for Transport and the Dutch Ministry of Transport.

Notes

¹The R-point is defined as the point where the hip of the 95th percentile male is located