Hailing Yu

This paper introduces a research plan by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation to be used for developing objective test procedures and estimating safety benefits of pre-crash sensing countermeasures. The main objective of pre-crash sensing applications is to sense a collision earlier than the current accelerometer-based approaches with anticipatory and more descriptive sensors, communicate this information to the vehicle and its occupant protection systems, and take appropriate actions to reduce the severity of crash injury. In addition, this paper provides preliminary results from a preparatory analysis to review state-of-the-art pre-crash sensing technology and applications, proposes a methodology to estimate their safety benefits, and defines relevant crash problems. The technology review is based on literature available in the public domain. The benefits estimation methodology is founded on the reduction of total harm by comparative assessment of crash injury with and without the assistance of pre-crash sensing systems. The crash problem is defined using the Crashworthiness Data System to identify relevant crashworthiness scenarios and their respective harm