WP4 - Pre-crash performance (Inlcuding test target development)

 The goal of WP4 is amongst others to come up with a test program to assess active safety systems that help the driver of a car to mitigate or even avoid an imminent accident. A first set up of the scenarios including the main boundary conditions that were adapted into a test protocol can be found here. The test protocol will be made available together with some test results after approval of the commission in June.

       
With mayor effort from all WP4 partners, and in close co-operation with WP1, a test program is defined that is based on real world accident situations while being flexible and challenging enough to fit the capabilities of current as well as future systems.

During the development of the program also attention was paid to limit the number of tests to a set that would be conductible within a reasonable timeframe. Hence the program can be attractive not only for OEMs for in-house evaluation but also for assessment by consumer programs as Euro NCAP.                                                                                                                             figure 2 ASSESSOR mounted to IDIADA rabbit

Figure 2 ASSESSOR mounted to IDIADA rabbit

In the course of this work package three laboratories with significantly different initial boundary conditions and approaches for pre-crash testing prepared their facilities for this new kind of testing. As current systems available in cars so far can mainly deal with rear-end scenarios, only those tests were actually conducted by the partners of this work package. Testing with 2 cars kindly provided by participating OEMs took place at BASt, IDIADA and TNO. Further testing with a fourth propulsion system not available in these 3 test houses was facilitated by Daimler.

Safety routines established by TUG as well as additional simulations investigating the influence of parameter variations on the obtainable impact speeds by TNO ensured that all tests could be conducted in a safe way for test tools, environment and personnel.

In close cooperation with work package 1 the obtained test results from all test sites were analyzed – also with respect to repeatability and reproducibility aspects. It was found, that the test method for AEB systems proposed within this work package was robust and could be verified. Differences in between the test laboratories as absolute and relative motion approaches or the usage of different propulsion systems were found to have negligible influence on the obtained test results. A detailed description of the results will be provided in Deliverable D4.3 after approval of the EU commission is obtained.

 

 

 Target Object Development

The ASSES project has set challenging requirements for the Target Object to be developed. The main requirements are:
1. Dimensions and shape based on European mid-size family cars like Opel Astra and VW Golf V
2. Aerodynamically stable up to a speed of 80 km/h
3. Crash forgiving up to 80 km/h for frontal and 40 km/h for lateral impact. (no damage to the propulsion system nor the subject car)
4. Usable on several laboratory systems

The design has used the “SoftCrashTarget” developed and prototyped by Daimler as a starting point. Target Object will use the principle of vented air cushion to dissipate the impact energy.

Car impact test at 32 km/h into a 200 kg box behind a vented air cushion

Description of the ASSESS Target Object
The ASSESS Target Object has the following overall dimensions Length 4200 mm, Width 1750 mm, Height 1480 mm (from the ground). The ground clearance will be 170 mm. It consists of the following main components:
1. Central box with the external dimensions L x B x H = 1840 x 600 x 970 mm (H measured from the grond). This is a Laboratory specific component containing the Target Object propulsion system.
2. Front and Rear Vented Boxes with a depth of 1180 mm. Each box is divided in three separate compartments.
3. Two identical Lateral Vented Boxes that can cover the complete side of the Central Box in case of lateral impact.
4. Two Crash Backups mounted on both sides of the Central Box behind the Frontal or Rear Vented Box to provide sufficient stiff backup for the crash exposed vented box over the full target width.
5. Two Roof and Window Pillar Parts to simulated the front and rear window area.
6. Wheel Simulations to simulate the wheel and wheel well area.
7. Bottoming Out Buffers to prevent hard contact in case the vented boxes bottoms out.
8. As add-ons car specific features such as active lights, number plate and radar cross section will be added to the Target Object.

Within the ASSESS project two prototypes will be provided for evaluation testing.