Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Volvo’s Pedestrian Detection System Based on Selected Real-Life Fatal Pedestrian Accidents

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The objective of this work is to test the potential benefit of active pedestrian protection systems. The tests are based on real fatal accidents with passenger cars that were not equipped with active safety systems. Tests have been conducted in order to evaluate what the real benefit of the active safety system would be, and not to gain only a methodological prediction. The testing procedure was the first independent testing in the world which was based on real fatal pedestrian accidents. The aim of the tests is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Volvo pedestrian detection system.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The in-depth accident database ZEDATU contains about 300 fatal pedestrian traffic accidents in urban areas. Eighteen cases of pedestrians hit by the front end of a passenger vehicle were extracted from this database. Cases covering an average traffic scenario have been reconstructed to obtain detailed model situations for testing. Simulations of accidents have been made in PC Crash 10.0 using a multibody object and a mesh model of vehicles. An active safety testing scenario was built on the basis of the reconstructed accidents with a Volvo V40 cc and a new dummy simulating a pedestrian. Before the tests the dummy was evaluated in anechoic room to gain required radar reflection properties which would be the same as those of a human body. The movement of the dummy was driven by the autonomous ultraflat overrunable robot (UFO) for experimental ADAS testing and synchronized with the Volvo’s motion by D-GPS with high accuracy.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">Experts that solves traffic accident involving a vehicle with a fully autonomous braking in a critical situation, encounter the problem of taking into account the impact of this system on the course of a traffic accident. Experts do not have enough information about the behavior of autonomous braking system. The implementation of such active safety systems has not yet been described and studied. Benefit of active safety systems to prevent road accidents can be achieved, for example, early warning driver of a potential collision situation sufficiently in advance to reaction and post-maneuver (braking, yaw,..). Professional community of traffic accident experts have lack of information about the general behavior of autonomous braking systems. From the perspective of traffic accident experts on following problems is study focused:</div><div class="htmlview paragraph"><ul class="list disc"><li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">How weather conditions affected to the operation of the system?</div></li><li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">In what speeds the system can prevent or reduce the risk of an accident?</div></li><li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">What type of pedestrian motion can system recognize?</div></li><li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">What period of time prior to the collision situation the system is warning the driver?</div></li><li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">How is the deceleration of the vehicle during autonomous braking?</div></li></ul></div></div>