Evaluation of Cost Effective Sensor Combinations for a Vehicle Precrash Detection System

Copyright © 2005 SAE International The future of vehicle safety will benefit greatly from precrash detection – the ability of a motor vehicle to predict the occurrence of an accident before it occurs. There are many different sensor technologies currently available for pre-crash detection. However no single sensor technology has demonstrated enough information gathering capability within the cost constraints of vehicle manufacturers to be used as a stand alone device. A proposed solution consists of combining information from multiple sensors in an intelligent computer algorithm to determine accurate precrash information. In this paper, a list of sensors currently available on motor vehicles and those that show promise for future development is presented. These sensors are then evaluated based on cost, information gathering capability and other factors. Cost sensitivity is lower in large commercial vehicles than in personal vehicles due to their higher initial cost and longer life span making them a good candidate for early adoption of such a system. This work forms the basis for ongoing research in developing an integrated object detection and avoidance precrash sensing system