Assessment methodologies for forward looking integrated pedestrian systems and further extension to cyclist safety: experimental and virtual testing for pedestrian protection

Pedestrians and cyclists are the most unprotected road users and their injury risk in case of accidents is significantly higher than for other road users. The understanding of the influence and sensitivity between important variables describing a pedestrian crash is key for the development of more efficient and reliable safety systems. This paper reflects the related work carried out within the AsPeCSS project. The results summarized out of virtual and physical tests provide valuable information for further development. 1168 virtual and 120 physical tests were carried out with adult and child pedestrian headform as well as upper and lower legform impactors representatives of 4 different vehicle front geometries in a wide range of impact speeds, angles and locations. This test matrix was based on previous work carried out within the AsPeCSS project. The results obtained show several trends and influences of input variables (impact speed, angle, location, impactor masses, impactor type) on the particular outcomes. In general, impact speed was the most influential parameter. The increase of impact speed resulted in higher HIC, bending moment or force presumably generating a higher injury risk. The work carried out provided the results to enable further development of Injury Risk Curves regarding VRU protection for different body regions. This work provides insight into the variation of injury criteria when also considering different speed and angles which is especially useful for the evaluation of active safety systems (e.g. AEB)