3rd Collegiate Student Safety Technology Design Competition (SSTDC)

Stuttgart, Germany , June 15-18, 2009

Background:

The International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) is one of the most important conferences on vehicle safety.  This conference serves as an international forum where advances in motor vehicle safety technology are presented and discussed.  The conference attracts participants from governments, the automobile industry, and research organizations from around the world. 

The SSTDC gives young scholars from Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America an exciting opportunity to design, build, and demonstrate a cost effective conceptual scale model of a vehicle safety technology.    In addition to the oral presentation, each team displayed their scale model in a booth in the exhibition center.  Teams representing Asia-Pacific included The University of Tokyo, Japan,  representing Europe included Loughborough University, United Kingdom, The Technical University Munich, Germany, and Institute of Automotive Engineering RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and representing North America included the University of Minnesota – Duluth, California Polytechnic State University, and George Mason University.

3rd Student Safety Technology Design Competition Winners

The International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) is pleased to announce the first and second place winners of the 3rd Student Safety Technology Design Competition:

First Place

Region:                                   Europe

Competition Category:         Pedestrian Injury Mitigation

Team Name:              Technical University Munich, Germany

Team Members:                    Daniel Schwarz, Christian Morhart

Advisor:                                  Prof. Dr. Erwin Biebl

Project Title:                           Emergency Braking System For Pedestrian Protection Using Cooperative Sensor Technology

Abstract

Preventive safety systems protecting vulnerable road users (VRU) require high performance perception systems. These systems must be capable to precisely identify, localize and track the VRU to calculate the risk of a potential collision. In contrast to previous systems relaying on e.g. laser scanners or video technology, cooperative sensor technology adopting transponder-based secondary radar technology for automotive applications is proposed. The sensor system developed within the research project AMULETT allows for secure classification of VRUs and is able to detect pedestrians even if optically occluded.

Based on AMULETT cooperative sensor data, an emergency braking system for VRU protection was developed and will be presented. It provides a variety of system implementations e.g. collision avoidance, collision mitigation and brake pre-conditioning integrated in a test vehicle. Using ego vehicle motion and AMULETT sensor data, a situation assessment algorithm computes the risk of a potential collision. The predicted risk is used as decision basis for subsequent autonomous protective measures. In the early phase of a possible collision the system activates a visual warning in the head-up display. If a collision can't be avoided, the maximum brake power is applied until the vehicle comes to a complete stop.

After completion of the protection procedure, the demonstrator system analyzes the braking maneuver estimating the maximum abbreviated injury scale of the potential crash with and without the protection system, giving live data of the system's added value to the test driver. Hence, the overall system performance can be evaluated extensively using appropriate test scenarios gained from in-depth accident studies. At the ESV2009 we plan to show the complete system in a demo vehicle with an extensive report on the measured results obtained from recent system tests.

Second Place

Region:                                   Europe

Competition Category:         Dummy Design and Instrumentation

Team Name:                          Institute of Automotive Engineering RWTH, Aachen University, Germany

Team Members:                    Jens Bovenkerk, Fabian Schmitt, Nikhil Kotris

Advisor:                                  Prof. Stefan Gies

Project Title:                           New Testing Method For Deployable Pedestrian Protection Systems

Abstract

Protection of pedestrians gains more and more importance due to increasing legislation and consumer testing demands. This has led to different passive-only and deployable protection systems to fulfill the new requirements relating to passive safety. One of these systems is the pop-up bonnet to increase the deformable space between the bonnet and the hard parts of the engine by lifting the rear bonnet-end.

The advantage of more deformable space goes along with the risk for the pedestrian’s head impacting directly in the open rear gap or on the sharp edge of the lifted bonnet-end. New injury risks could be neck angle increases caused by an extended rotational movement of the pedestrian’s head after the shoulder impact and skull fractures caused by a contact with the sharp rear edge. Furthermore upper extremities can be caught up while the pedestrian is separating from the vehicle.

Current testing procedures to investigate pedestrian safety have not been adapted to the new vehicle systems and work only with linear displacements of impactors and acceleration sensing systems. Aim is to address these new impact conditions and encourage manufacturers to develop improved safety systems. Therefore, a new rotational movement of the impactor against the bonnet rear is necessary to measure the force of the sharp edge contact.

The basis for this new testing method has been developed by ika in APROSYS by upgrading the EEVC adult head form with a force sensing area and rotational movement. In this competition the new testing method will be applied and demonstrated by a real-world testing application on a vehicle. New vehicle design elements for the open bonnet rear gap regarding the compliance with this testing method and therefore better pedestrian protection potential will be developed and demonstrated in this competition.

Based on the criteria set forth for evaluating student prototypes and presentation, these two teams represent the best and the brightest of 7 teams that came to Stuttgart to compete in this international competition.

NHTSA and BASt, as leaders of this year’s ESV conference, recognize the outstanding achievement of these two teams and all participating finalist teams.

The awards were presented at the closing ceremonies in Stuttgart on Thursday June17th, 2009.

If you would like more information about the ESV Conference, please contact: Donna Gilmore Donna.Gilmore@dot.gov or for more information about the SSDC, please contact: Art Carter Arthur.Carter@dot.gov.