Pedestrian Airbag Technology – A Production System
Pedestrians in conflict with passenger cars represent an important portion of all road user fatalities. This paper presents the world-first pedestrian airbag technology offered in a production vehicle, being one way of addressing pedestrian protection, focusing on trying to help further cushion the impact for a pedestrian and also enable a sleek styling of the vehicle in question. A description of the technology is provided as well as examples of tests for evaluating technical performance, head impact characteristics and overall technology performance. Sensors in the bumper provide input to the pedestrian airbag control unit that determines if the system should be activated. The hood hinges are released and the pedestrian airbag deploys helping both to elevate the hood itself as well as helping to cushion a potential impact. The lift height is controlled and limited. Numerous tests of the components and the system performed in various situations, including different weather conditions, verified the technical performance and validated the complete chain of events from detection of a pedestrian leg to the final state of deployment. Using head impactor tests, the head impact protection capabilities showed overall good performance. Impact towards the pedestrian airbag reduces the acceleration level as compared to without the airbag. Overall performance of the complete technology, including head impact timing, airbag coverage and overall occupant kinematics was verified using a pedestrian prototype crash test dummy and four different pedestrian finite element (FE) human models. The pedestrian airbag technology as being one possible solution to cushion an impact helps to protect pedestrians in certain situations when struck by the vehicles front end with a consequent impact to the hood and the area around the windscreen wiper recess and A-pillar.
- Record URL:
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Corporate Authors:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC United States 20590 -
Authors:
- Jakobsson, Lotta
- Broberg, Thomas
- Karlsson, Henrik
- Fredriksson, Anders
- Gråberg, Niklas
- Gullander, Christina
- Lindman, Magdalena
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Conference:
- 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV)
- Location: Seoul , Korea, South
- Date: 2013-5-27 to 2013-5-30
- Publication Date: 2013
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Web
- Features: Figures; Photos; References;
- Pagination: 7p
- Monograph Title: 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV): Research Collaboration to Benefit Safety of All Road Users
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Air bags; Crash tests; Dummies; Head; Hoods; Pedestrian safety; Pedestrian vehicle crashes
- Uncontrolled Terms: Human models
- Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I91: Vehicle Design and Safety;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01569572
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 13-0447
- Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
- Created Date: Jul 16 2015 12:08PM