In recent years, the development and commercialization of pre-crash safety systems have been steadily progressing. These systems judge the possibility of collisions with objects around the driver’s vehicle and operate collision damage mitigating devices before a collision occurs. Conventional systems include controls for dealing with objects directly in front of the driver’s vehicle in the direction of travel, but this scope must be expanded to help further reduce the number of fatalities and injuries caused by traffic accidents. This research has developed a front-side pre-crash safety system that broadens the scope of control to include collisions at goodvisible intersections and collisions with oncoming vehicles intruding into the path of the driver’s vehicle. To detect objects in this expanded range, short-range millimeter wave radars with enhanced distance resolution capabilities and a higher level of sensitivity were used. The crash prediction algorithm was also set to a higher speed than conventional algorithms in accordance with the circumstances of the target accidents. Also, based on an algorithm that estimates which part of the driver’s vehicle will receive the impact, a function was added that prepares the appropriate side airbags for activation upon impact if there is a high possibility of a side-impact collision. Combined with conventional systems, the new system enhances the damage-mitigation effect when an accident occurs.
Abstract