International Journal of Crashworthiness

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A new pre-crash system for side impact protection

J. Tandler , E. Zimmerman , V. Muntean , B. Seipel , T. Koch , D. Willersinn , M.

Grinberg , C. Mayer & M. Diez

To cite this article: J. Tandler , E. Zimmerman , V. Muntean , B. Seipel , T. Koch , D. Willersinn ,

M. Grinberg , C. Mayer & M. Diez (2008) A new pre-crash system for side impact protection,
International Journal of Crashworthiness, 13:6, 679-692, DOI: 10.1080/13588260802411499

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Published online: 05 Dec 2008.

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International Journal of Crashworthiness
Vol. 13, No. 6, December 2008, 679692

A new pre-crash system for side impact protection

J. Tandler , E. Zimmerman , V. Munteanb , B. Seipelc , T. Kochc , D. Willersinnd , M. Grinbergd , C. Mayere and M. Diezf
a b

a
Continental, Lindau, Germany; b Faurecia, Scheuerfeld, Germany; c Fraunhofer Institute LBF, Darmstadt, Germany; d Fraunhofer
Institute IITB, Karlsruhe, Germany; e Daimler, Boblingen, Germany; f Cidaut, Valladolid, Spain
(Received 1 April 2008; nal version received 14 August 2008)

Sub-project 6 of the European Integrated Project APROSYS, implemented within the 6th Framework Programme, has
developed an integrated safety system for side impact protection. For this, two different innovative technologies have been
applied for the rst time as a technology showcase in a car: shape memory alloy based actuators and a pre-crash sensing
subsystem using radar and stereo-vision observing the side of a vehicle. Several technical challenges had to be met during
development work. The sensing subsystem detects an imminent collision and decides about the probability of a collision.
It activates the actuator before the crash occurs in order to reduce intrusion into the passenger compartment. This article
describes the sensing subsystem, the actuator subsystem and nally the testing programme that was executed to evaluate the
complete system.
Keywords: integrated safety; side pre-crash; shape memory alloy; radar; stereo video

1. Introduction and the relevance of side impact
protection
An increasing number of cars are equipped nowadays with
intelligent safety systems. These use information from en-
vironmental sensors to detect possible threats and can adap-
tively take appropriate countermeasures. In particular, pas-
sive safety measures improving the crashworthiness of the
car can be deployed in a way that they offer an optimal
protection for the car occupants. This approach is widely
known as integrated safety. The integrated safety system
described here has the objective to mitigate injuries in side
crashes.
Side crashes are a major threat to trafc safety. While
front and side crashes occur with comparable frequency, the
risk of an injury from a side crash is much higher. This is due
to the close distance between an occupant and the incoming
object at rst contact. For the same reason, existing in-crash
sensing technology does not allow for timely deployment of
collision mitigation measures. In order to develop a suitable
side impact protection system in APROSYS sub-project 6
(SP6), a complete technical development programme was
executed. Firstly, accident statistics were analysed in detail.
On the basis of this, various concepts for side impact pro-
tection were studied in multi-body [1] and nite elements
simulations [10]. Also human behaviour in side crashes was
examined [7]. Accordingly, the sensor and actuator subsys-
tems were dened, developed and integrated into several
vehicles. A thorough evaluation programme has tested sen-
sor and actuator subsystem.
The sensor subsystem consists of the combination of 24-
GHz radar sensors with a stereo video camera. The actuator
uses shape memory alloys (SMAs) to realise a fast but
reversible actuator. The system was kept generic, so that it
could be built into any vehicle.
As the nal part of the APROSYS SP6 testing pro-
gramme, this system has shown its effectiveness in a
EuroNCAP-based crash test. Demonstrating the integrated
character of the system, the sensors detected the approach-
ing crash barrier, and 231 ms before the crash triggered the
actuator. As a crash facility is an unnatural environment for
a sensing system and one single test is not enough, the sen-
sor system evaluation took place beforehand. The actuator
reduced intrusion and intrusion velocity into the passenger
compartment. This gives conventional devices, like airbags,
more time and space to protect the car occupants.
Detecting imminent side crashes: the sensor
subsystem
From a detailed study of accident statistics, requirements for
the sensing subsystem were derived [11]. In order to detect
a large number of side impacts and provide useful informa-
tion to the actuator subsystem, the sensing subsystem has to
r detect and track objects impacting the side of the car;
r determine size and shape of impacting objects (for
classication: pole motorcycle, car);
r determine the collision risk and decide about a colli-
sion at the latest 200 ms before impact;

Corresponding author. Email: joachim.tandler@continental-corporation.com

ISSN: 1358-8265
Copyright 
C 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13588260802411499
http://www.informaworld.com
680 J. Tandler et al.

Figure 1. Field of view of the sensing system (radar sensors, blue; stereo camera, red).

r survey an area of 20 m range and the side/front of In a front view, vehicles are mostly seen from the front
the car. or from the rear, and they are usually at such a distance
that they are completely visible in the image. These restric-
This is achieved by a fusion system consisting of tions make it possible to exploit generic features such as
r a radar sensor network (two sensors) and symmetry and U-shapes for object detection in real time.
r a stereo video camera. Another particularity of the front view is that observed
vehicles mainly move either parallel or anti-parallel to the
camera-carrying vehicle. As a consequence, vehicle orien-
The mounting positions and the eld of view of these
tation may be assumed constant which allows for the use of
sensors are indicated in Figure 1.
simplied motion models for vehicle tracking. Also, track
In the rst step, the information from both sensor types
initialisation is considerably simplied if the vehicle ori-
is processed individually. Then, a fusion module combines
entation can be assumed to be known. Detection of lane
their data before it is used by a decision module to assess the
markings allows nding regions of interest and makes it
collision risk and eventually trigger the actuator subsystem.
additionally easier to identify relevant objects.
The restrictions of a front view do not apply in a side-
The radar sensor network looking perspective. As Figure 3 illustrates, many different
object orientations have to be taken into account. Combined
The Continental short range radar was adapted for the spe-
cic needs of the side-looking application. Its key features
are:
r Centre frequency 24 GHz
r Signal bandwidth 1000 MHz
r Measures simultaneously:
- Distance (accuracy 0.1 m)
- Angle (accuracy 2 )
- Relative speed (accuracy 1 m/s)

For smooth integration under front and rear bumpers,

the radar antenna was adapted to look into front/side direc-
tion (Figure 2).

The stereo video camera

Together with the radar network, a stereo video camera
system was chosen in APROSYS as a sensor for pre-crash
detection. High resolution combined with decreasing cost
make vision-based systems more and more attractive for
automotive applications. While developing a side-looking
Figure 2. Beam patterns of the adapted radar sensor prototype.
video pre-crash system several particularities have to be Although the sensors can be easily mounted parallel to the cars
taken into account, which make such a system different symmetry plane, their sensitivity is concentrated in the front/side
from systems used for forward-looking applications. direction as required.
 International Journal of Crashworthiness
Figure 3. Scenarios with complex object trajectories observed
by a side-looking video camera.
Figure 4. Non-standard camera orientation in APROSYS.
with a large variety of object types, this makes it extremely
challenging to detect objects based on their appearance in
real time. For the realisation of a side-looking video system
we therefore had to choose a generic approach to achieve
robust and reliable object detection. Object hypotheses are
generated from so called depth maps which are the result of
stereo processing. Depth maps consist of three-dimensional
point clouds. They are built by nding corresponding struc-
tures in both video images and reconstructing their range
using knowledge of mutual orientation of both cameras.
Figure 5. Visualisation of epipolar lines in rectied images.
681
After extraction of a depth map, road location is esti-
mated. Then, object points are separated from road points
and grouped into clusters. Tracking of those clusters makes
it possible to estimate motion of observed objects and to pre-
dict their behaviour in advance. Together with ego-motion
estimation this allows for collision prediction.
To cover the observation area shown in Figure 1, the
individual cameras in APROSYS have wide eld of view
lenses and a non-standard orientation with respect to the rig
base. The camera orientation is depicted in Figure 4.
This leads to some particularities in low-level stereo
data processing. In standard stereo systems, the input
images are rst transformed to epipolar geometry. The
advantage is that corresponding features are located in
the same image line in both images. If the cameras
are oriented as shown in Figure 4, then the images in
epipolar geometry show large trapezoid image distor-
tion, cf. Figure 5. The transformation would make time-
consuming and noise-prone interpolation necessary. For
this reason we skip the transformation to epipolar ge-
ometry and execute correspondence search directly in
the original images. Corresponding features are then lo-
cated on complex curves rather than on straight lines, see
Figure 6.
Further challenges of a side-looking video-based pre-
crash system are small observation time and complex object
trajectories, combined with relatively low sampling rate of
the video system (compared e.g. to a radar or lidar) and
a long period for which prediction has to be done. This
implies usage of a tracker with appropriate object motion
models [4].
In Figure 7, results of side pre-crash detection based on
stereo processing are shown. On the left side, the input im-
age with depth measures and their projection to the ground
plane is shown. On the right side, a top view illustrating the
result of processing is displayed. Dots represent depth mea-
sures; box represents the object hypothesis. The estimated
682 J. Tandler et al.

Figure 6. Epipolar curves (magenta) for correspondence search in original image geometry.

object position, relative speed and time to collision (TTC) The combination of both sensor types makes it possible
are printed in red. to suppress signicantly false alarms while maintaining a
high efciency to detect side impacts.

The fusion system The decision module

The fusion system enables spatial alignment and synchro-
nised data acquisition of the radar and the video subsystem.
This is crucial for the demanding side pre-crash applica-
tion. The fusion system can associate matching video and
radar objects and provide them to the decision module in a
consistent format (cf. Figure 8).
The decision module performs a risk assessment: it extrap-
olates all detected objects in time and calculates eventually
the TTC. It determines if it is physically possible to escape
the collision by braking or steering and calculates accord-
ingly a collision probability. If TTC and collision probabil-
ity cross certain thresholds, the decision that a collision will

Figure 7. Result of side pre-crash detection based on stereo video.

 International Journal of Crashworthiness
Figure 8. Schematic view of radar and video information to be
fused.
happen is taken and communicated to the actuator system
(cf. also [5]).
An example of a situation when a trigger has to be
issued is depicted in Figure 9.
Since the sensor information about the accident cong-
uration is thus available before the crash, it is still possible
Figure 9. Top view of a scene representation in the fusion and
decision application (unit: meters). The host car carrying the sen-
sors is indicated as a grey rectangle around (0,0). The red rectangle
represents a stereo video object. The small white box represents a
radar reection object. The lines point to where an object would
be after 1 s with linear extrapolation. Red boxes indicate possible
impact points on the host car surface. In this case, a trigger has to
be sent to the actuator system.
683
to react adaptively and take optimal countermeasures with
an appropriate actuator.
Adaptively improving the crashworthiness of a car:
the actuator subsystem
In side impacts, the fatalities normally occur within the
rst period of the crash (7080 ms) and are mainly caused
by the hard contact of the occupant with the interior trims
when the biomechanical limits for the head deceleration
and thorax loads are exceeded. However, severe injuries can
occur at the pelvis and lower extremities if the contact with
the interior trim is too hard. On the top, the small energy-
absorbing zone available on the side structure limits the
protection possibilities.
Looking closer at side impact accidents with respect to
structural deformation, three very different crash scenarios
can be distinguished. These are car to car, car to pole
type road infrastructure and car to motorcycle impact.
To ensure protection in all these scenarios a safety system
must cope with the specic protection needs of these very
different load cases.
To reduce the severity of a side impact in the above men-
tioned scenarios, a two-fold strategy is necessary: reduce
the structural deformation of the car body in regions where
the occupant life is jeopardised and secondly soften the con-
tact of the occupant with the interior trim. For APROSYS
SP6 however, it was decided to work on intrusion reduction
only, to focus on devices which try to reduce the deforma-
tion of the car structure.
The actuator subsystem was evaluated in side-crash
tests with a deformable barrier, for which an extensive anal-
ysis of the structural behaviour was performed.
Structural deformation in side impact with
deformable barrier
As a reference, a full car crash according to the EuroNCAP
protocol was performed, which led to a good understand-
ing of the structural crash modes in side crash. Intrusion
measurements were done by acceleration sensors mounted
at signicant locations on the B-pillar, rocker and door
panel on both car sides as well as post-crash intrusion mea-
surements. As an outcome of this study, relevant structures
driving deformation (B-pillar, rocker, roof, oorboard and
doors) were identied and analysed.
From there, the B-pillar is considered to be the structural
part driving the intrusion in side crash. The B-pillar does
not follow a continuous bending line, but, by its plastic
hinges, determines the deformation pattern of the complete
side structure. Five plastic hinges are developing along its
lengths (Figure 10). It can be observed that the hinge at the
height of the belt line intrudes the most into the passenger
compartment (488 mm).
684 J. Tandler et al.
Figure 10. B-pillar hinges in side crash with MDB.
Actuator system layout
Different concepts to reduce intrusion were investigated.
They consisted of either connecting the doors to the car
body in different congurations, or supporting B-pillar or
redirecting crash loads towards stiff regions, especially non-
impacted structures like B-pillar, oorboard and crash box
[6,8]. For the investigation of the broad variety of concepts
to reduce intrusion in side impact, a multi-body model and
a generic FE model of Chrysler Neon were used.
From the investigated concepts it was found that the
best way to reduce intrusion was to redirect the loads to the
unstruck side, where the rocker meets the crash box and the
oor. This region was considered to be very stiff with a low
risk of injuries for the occupants.
The redirection of the loads actively opens a new load
path from the rst contact phase on and consequently un-
loads the B-pillar. On top, it reduces the intrusion not only
at the B-pillar but in regions where the occupant sits.
Figure 11. Actuator layout in simulation.
Generally, the actuator system comprises of three re-
gions as depicted in Figure 11:
r Door seat coupling (corresponding to struck side)
done by an active device, an SMA tube actuator
r Seat-centre console-seat coupling
r tambour spring pre-dened rotation hinge located
on the unstruck side at rocker to oorboard connec-
tion
Broken down into components, the actuator system is
composed of a transversal tube (5) (Figure 11), reinforce-
ments to prevent buckling (6 and 7), additional supports of
the beam on the unstruck side (811) and active parts (2
and 4) actuated to close the load mechanism.
The principle of the active device is shown in Figure 12.
The active device (the actuators) is located on the struck side
and consists of two parts. The rst one is a rotating door
beam which in an un-deployed state stands upright and does
 International Journal of Crashworthiness 685

Figure 12. Active part function.

not hinder the normal travelling of the glass. When red, this
beam rotates into a horizontal position lling the complete
door box. The second part is a tube with a popping out
bolt which is mounted in the seat, transversally just below
the knees. In normal driving conditions the space between
seat and door is free, when deployed, the bolt creates a tight
engagement of the door and the transversal tube mounted in
the seat. In this way, all existing gaps between the outer sheet
metal and the seat are closed. By this the actuators fulll
their safety function to occupy space which is needed for
comfort applications during normal driving. Furthermore
components and reinforcements (Figure 11) stabilise the
actuator system behaviour under crash loads and prevent
it from buckling or any other undesired intrusion in the
passenger environment. The tambour spring located on the
unstruck side is meant to take the crash loads from the
barrier and to put them to the car structure by a pre-dened
rotational deformation pattern. In this way, the crash peaks
transferred to the complete actuator system are considerably
smoothened. This applies especially for the high amount of
bending moments on the bolt (Figure 13b).
A visual representation from Computer Aided En-
gineering (CAE) of the simulated intrusion reduction is
depicted in Figure 14. The intrusion is reduced not only

Figure 13. Actuator failure modes. (a) Crush box rotation on unstruck side; (b) actuator bending on crush side.

Figure 14. Actuator performance. Intrusion reduction at the B-pillar and where the passenger sits.
686 J. Tandler et al.

Figure 15. Schematic representation of the shape memory alloy (SMA) effect. The austenite and martensite states of an SMA material
differ in the congurations of the molecular lattice of the alloy. By heating and cooling one can switch between these two congurations.
Besides, the martensite conguration can be deformed (effect not used in the described actuator).

at the B-pillar region but where the occupant sits as well.
In blue, the reference model (no actuator) is shown; the
model with the pre-crash system implemented is shown in
red (this gure can be viewed in colour online).
After concept and design of the actuator system were
identied, the nal actuator prototype was realised featuring
an SMA based release mechanism.
Realisation of a shape memory alloy based tube
actuator
Currently smart materials like SMAs or piezoceramics are
not in standard use for crash applications. Furthermore,
there was a common understanding that SMAs are not suit-
able for time-critical safety applications. Here we describe
the development of a prototype actuator, which has an SMA
release mechanism and is well suitable for the time-critical
safety application of APROSYS SP6. First the functional
principle is explained, followed by the mechanical and elec-
trical development steps. At the end of this section the nal
actuator design is shown. More information about the SMA
actuator can be found elsewhere [2].
The principle of shape memory alloy
Shape memory alloys fall into the category of so called
smart materials. Such smart materials transform energy
types, e.g. electrical energy into mechanical energy. Of-
ten the materials prove both actuator and sensor features in
one material; in case of SMAs the actuator function is being
primarily technically exploited. The functional principle of
this material is based on a thermally induced solid state
phase transformation, from martensite to austenite (Figure
15). Increasing the temperature refers to the transition of
martensite into austenite. The transition starts at tempera-
ture As and is completed at Af (austenite start/nish). While
cooling down the transition is being reversed. The character-
istic temperatures are Ms and Mf (martensite start/nish).
While the molecular structure of martensite is a face-
centred cubic crystal, the austenite phase shows a body-
centred cubic lattice. While heating the alloy, the phase
transition from martensite to austenite occurs, the shape of
the SMA-device changes and high actuator forces can be
generated. Feasible shape changes range up to 8% whereas
typically active strains are kept limited to roughly 2%. To
adjust the working temperature of such SMA actuators,
it is essential to design the temperature As . This can be
done in the range of 150 C to 200 C and is achieved by
adjusting the constituents of the alloy. The most prominent
type of SMA is nickeltitanium (NiTi) based. Depending
on operational loads (thermal, strain, mechanical) and type
of alloy such SMA show a lifetime of 106 cycles.
Several possibilities have been checked to heat an SMA-
device. Using the car cooling liquid, motor oil or chemicals
are rejected because of safety risks. So the heating is re-
alised by using the mechanism of the electric conductor
heating as a result of electricity. This electricity has to be
delivered by the car battery. A rst assumption shows that
 International Journal of Crashworthiness
Figure 16. Functional principle of tube actuator: (a) initial position; (b) working position.
Figure 17. Tube actuator with fully integrated electronics.
a normal car battery is able to heat a mass of about 10 g
within 100 ms.
Tube actuator
Figure 16 shows a schematic drawing of the tube actuator.
A bolt (1), which normally rests in a housing, can be
driven by a pre-stressed steel-spring (3) from its initial
position (inside the seat frame) to a working position. At
this working position the top of the bolt is guided by a
counterpart at the door trim (4). Small moveable radially
mounted elements (2) lock the bolt there and prevent an
unhindered backward motion.
The release mechanism that initiates the movement of
the bolt consists of two main parts; a small lever arm that in-
teracts with the rear end of the bolt (5) and an SMA wire (6)
that during activation pulls the lever arm to release the bolt.
Mechanical development
To show the potential for serial production, the complete
release mechanism, the SMA wire, as well as the electronics
were integrated in a polyamide plastic housing. By this it
was possible to build a stand alone crash actuator. For a
proper operation it only needs to be connected by a small
687
cable to a Controller Area Network (CAN) and the on board
power supply (Figure 17).
Electrical development
The main part of the electronics is a microcontroller that
has two tasks to provide the communication with the sensor
system via CAN-bus and to control the activation of the
SMA-wire. To activate the SMA-wire it has to be electri-
cally heated in a very short time. This heating is done by a
pre-dened discharging of a capacitor. Instead of one large
capacitor, ve smaller ones (1500 F each) were connected
in parallel. Because of the limitation of the on board power
supply of the car (12 volts), the stored energy of the ca-
pacitors is boosted by using a step up converter to raise
the voltage up to 40 volts. Due to the high peak current a
special MOS-FET is used for switching the load.
The whole electronics is integrated into the plastic hous-
ing by dividing it into three small circuit boards and stacking
them.
Final tube actuator design
The nal design is shown in Figure 18. The tube actu-
ator can easily be mounted inside the seat structure and
only needs a cable to connect to the power supply of the
car and the CAN-bus. If the activation signal is sent via
the CAN-bus, the electronics is heating the SMA-wire by
discharging the capacitors. The SMA-wire releases the pre-
stressed spring and the bolt closes the gap between the seat
and the door trim. The small locking elements prevent an
unhindered backward motion. The whole deployment time
from acknowledgement of the activation signal till locking
the bolt is about 100 ms.
Performance of actuator system
The actuator and the other parts of the actuator system were
installed in test cars. The actuator system installed in the
test car used for nal evaluation is depicted in Figure 19.
The development process was strongly supported by
CAE simulations. The full car model of the DC Neon
was validated for side impact for both MDB and pole
688
Figure 18. Bolt (1), mounting ange (2), tube with integrated
sliding bearings (3), steel spring drive (4), stacked electronics (5),
adaptor (6a), plastic housing (6b).
impact scenarios. However validation of the CAE models
is a mandatory ongoing process. Therefore, tests to relate
the real performance of the actuator system to the CAE
environment were done. The tests can roughly be grouped
in two families:
r Component testing: This was meant to assess the
mechanical performance and the reaction time of the
SMA actuator. The tests show a proper reaction time
and a clear repeatability: the actuator moves the bolt
(400 g) for a travel of 115 mm in 60 ms which
is well in the project target of 200 ms, a time span
negotiated with the sensor subsystem. Furthermore,
it was shown that the actuator is able to carry the
big amount of crash loads (70 kN) as predicted from
simulation.
Figure 19. Actuator system implemented in a test car.
J. Tandler et al.
r Full car testing: Four types of crashes were per-
formed referred to in the following as: reference,
deployed actuator, active actuator 01 and op-
timised actuator. These tests were performed ac-
cording to EuroNCAP side impact protocol with de-
formable barrier. The subjected cars were Chrysler
Neons, model year 9499. The four tests are sum-
marised in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of tests.
B-Pillar belt Pre-crash actuator
Test vehicle line intrusion system
Reference 488 mm Not implemented
Deployed actuator 412 mm Implemented in
deployed state
Active actuator 01 444 mm Implemented, triggered
by a oorboard
switch
Optimised actuator 418 mm Implemented, triggered
by a oorboard
switch
To capture intrusion, pre- and post-geometrical mea-
surement of the car body were done. On top, a special crash
measurement system has been installed. On board high-
speed cameras and several crash accelerometers captured
dynamically the performance and the deformation modes
of the car structure.
A striking improvement of the actuator system can be
seen at the steering wheel. In Figure 20a, the steering wheel
of the reference vehicle is severely distorted in compari-
son with the actuator vehicle (Figure 20b) which is barely
touched by the door; this conrms the reduction of intrusion
all over the door.
A closer look at Figure 21 conrms this signicantly.
The intrusion reduction amounts to more than 50 mm and
is spread all over the door but especially where the occu-
pant sits. This translates in valuable survival space for the
occupants! The reduction of deformation velocity of the
door in critical regions for the occupants (corresponding to
thorax and abdomen) rises up to 2 m/s at 25 ms as depicted
in Figure 22.
On top, due to the usage of the on board measurement
equipment, the function of the actuator system could be
observed during the crash. The performance of the actuator
at 25 ms (a critical time for injuries in side impact and nev-
ertheless for airbag deployment) is depicted in Figure 23.
The door in the reference test is intruding into the
passenger compartment (Figure 23a) whereas, with
actuator, the door is kept away from intruding (Figure 23b).
This space gained in the lower region of the door addresses
directly the pelvis and abdomen of the driver (occupant).
On the unstruck side, the tambour spring receives the
 International Journal of Crashworthiness 689

Figure 20. Steering wheel deformation.

crash loads and rotates the rocker and the oorboard. The
amount of crash loads transfer is to be seen by the move
of the transversal tube at the side of the seat (Figure 23c,
white marks).
In order to check the actuator subsystem performance
not only in one single crash test scenario, variations of
different scenarios were performed in CAE.
These scenario variations consisted of:
r Impact variation (barrier to car, car to pole and car to
car);
r Impact speed variation (60 km/h, 70 km/h for barrier;
and 35 km/h, 40 km/h for pole)
r Impact angle variation (15 , 30 for barrier; and 75
for pole)

The results are depicted in Figure 24 and show good ro-

Figure 21. Performance of deployed actuator. bustness of the actuator system. The presence of the actuator
reduces the intrusion in all investigated scenarios. However,

Figure 22. Reduction of deformation velocity of the door in the thorax region.
690 J. Tandler et al.
Figure 23. 25 ms: Actuator function in side crash. (a) Tambour effect unstuck side; (b) active components on struck side; (c) reference
door.
Figure 24. Performance of the actuator system in different crash
scenarios; intrusion measured at the driver door in the region of
thorax.
the best performance is achieved in barrier impacts (34%)
and car to car (26%). Even though there was no special
aligning arrangement done for the actuator system and the
pole impact, the simulations show still an improvement in
intrusion reduction of more than 10%. Surprisingly, the in-
trusion was reduced in the US 75 pole impact scenario by
20%. These investigations showed the actuator system in
multiple impact scenarios, obviously, the concept is robust.
The intrusion and deformation speed reduction at the
door on spread regions is the major gain of the actuator
system. As a consequence, the actuator system enables to
increase the side impact crashworthiness, such as:
r Restraint systems have more space and time to deploy
more efciently (e.g. airbag);
r Contact time is delayed and with this contact forces as
well as the other biomechanical values are reduced;
r Intrusion is reduced exactly where the occupant sits,
survival space and time are gained;
r The new load path changes the crash modes of the
side structure.
Evaluating a side pre-crash system: the testing
programme
In the nal phase of the project an extensive test suite was
carried out according to an assessment methodology devel-
oped in APROSYS WP 1.3 [3]. Following this methodol-
ogy, the test program was proposed [9] and performed in
the following three test clusters:
r Assessment of real-world performance: (false alarm
rate and comfort issues) by track tests and a eld
test. This test cluster represents the area support-
ing information and is primarily focussing on the
sensing and decision system.
r Assessment of the pre-crash performance: The test
conditions are based on the accident scenarios taking
into account also the system and test lab limitations.
Focus on pre-crash sensing system (radar/stereo cam-
era).
r Assessment of the crash performance: For this, the
EuroNCAP side impact test protocol was selected.
Focus of the crash performance test is the reversible
crash actuator application.
Real-world performance
A false alarm analysis in real trafc has been carried out in
a Field Test on European roads (France, Italy, Austria, Ger-
many approx. 2000 km). Several alarm situations were
recorded and now clustered whether they are real false
alarms (comfort issue) or acceptable w.r.t. the triggered
safety application. Such eld tests can be recommended as
 International Journal of Crashworthiness 691

Figure 25. Typical situations in the eld test (VUT in front) and example for test situation on test track.

essential within the evaluation of a pre-crash system sup- tests are performed with critical objects in a controlled
plemented by track tests to evaluate the sensor performance environment. The results serve the purpose of the now
in specic trafc situations. Figure 25 shows typical scenes extended technical performance evaluation cluster of
from the eld test and the track test. advanced safety systems.

Pre-crash performance Crash performance

In this test cluster, non-destructive tests, representing The crash test, showing the potential of the reversible actu-
accident scenarios, were carried out (cf. Figure 26). The ator by means of a reduction of the intrusion and intrusion

Figure 26. Non-destructive test in test facility examples of test scenarios representing accident situations.

Figure 27. Test conguration according to the EuroNCAP protocol pre-test installation in crash test environment with test rig to qualify
the system for the nal technology showcase within the project.
692 J. Tandler et al.
velocity, nally allows an overall assessment of the com-
plete pre-crash side protection system. (A pre-test has been
carried out to ensure that a nal demonstration of the com-
plete system as a technology showcase could be arranged
as well in a crash test facility environment. In Figure 27, the
test conguration and the pre-test installation are shown.)
Conclusions and future steps
In summary, the work described here has shown that it is
feasible to build a side impact detection system delivering
a trigger at the latest 200 ms before the impact happens.
Already at this time it is possible to determine that a colli-
sion cannot be avoided. Although side impact detection is
inherently more difcult than e.g. frontal impact detection
and although the research system described here would still
need improvement before becoming a product, it is shown
that there are no fundamental obstacles.
The actuator system has been effective to reduce intru-
sion into the passenger compartment. It is clear now that
SMA-based actuators full the requirements of an auto-
motive time-critical safety application, while offering their
unique property, i.e. to be fast and reversible at the same
time.
In general, modern vehicles will implement an increas-
ing number of active and passive safety features. Hence,
there will be a growing demand for an intelligent integra-
tion of both.
The results from APROSYS SP6 will be used by the
partners in their individual products. We expect that in the
coming years we will see more and more vehicles equipped
with environmental sensors to obtain pre-crash informa-
tion. We expect that SMA actuators will have their place
in automotive applications. The corresponding test methods
are going to be used by car manufacturers and consumer or-
ganisations like EuroNCAP. Last but not least, other funded
projects will build on the gained knowledge.
Using pre-crash sensing information, the conventional
passive safety devices can be signicantly enhanced. Know-
ing what is impacting when and where offers a potential
to protect the car occupant much more effectively. After
frontal pre-crash sensing systems have an increasing mar-
ket share, side pre-crash sensing systems will be offered in
the near future.
Acknowledgements
Several companies and research institutes worked together
to collect the knowledge necessary to develop new tech-
nologies in the automotive industry. Continental (Germany)
supplied radar sensor and fusion know-how and led the sub-
project. Fraunhofer-IITB institute (Germany) developed a
stereo camera system. Faurecia (France) provided expertise
in automotive interior systems and coordinated the actuator
system development. Fraunhofer-LBF institute (Germany)
contributed the shape memory alloy technology. CIDAUT
(Spain) and Instituto Superior Tecnico (Portugal) provided
simulations and crash test analyses. Warsaw University of
Technology (Poland) studied driver behaviour in simulated
side crashes. TNO (Netherlands) analysed accident statis-
tics, helped with the system denition and performed pre-
crash tests. Daimler (Germany) coordinated and also per-
formed tests.
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