A generalised approach to active pedestrian safety testing

Active pedestrian safety systems can help to significantly increase pedestrian road safety, but must be tested very carefully before used in series application. Since there is usually a very small amount of time to prevent the collision, the activation of an emergency brake is always a critical decision. On the other hand, of course, false triggerings must be prevented. Aiming to increase pedestrian and vehicle safety, this thesis presents a novel approach for the test of active pedestrian safety systems. From the question "What is needed to test and compare future active pedestrian safety systems?" are resulting the following questions: 1. What are the significant characteristics of real pedestrians? 2. How can this features be mapped to a test system? This thesis presents characteristic features of pedestrians from the perspective of automotive surround sensors and introduces a novel test system approach including a realistic pedestrian dummy which is able to replicate those characteristics. Furthermore it introduces a novel active pedestrian safety test methodology, based on the variation of target characteristics, environmental conditions and driver behaviour. The proposed pedestrian dummy was set up in real size and tested on the test track in vehicle tests. A video of the described test and the novel pedestrian dummy can be seen here: https://youtu.be/eF5IkqsknB

A novel approach for the test of active pedestrian safety systems

Active pedestrian safety systems are based on a variety of sensor systems and detection algorithm approaches. The activation of, e.g., an emergency brake is a critical decision. Therefore, such applications must be tested very responsibly. This paper shows the characteristic features of pedestrians, presents current test methods, and introduces a novel test system approach and pedestrian dummy, which enables the test of advanced pedestrian detection systems. This includes also detection algorithm approaches including pre-indicators and path prediction for a complex motion pattern. The complex motion pattern can be a walking or a running pedestrian, including velocity and direction changes