Validation of pre-crash systems with vehicle hardware-in-the-loop experiments

Pre-Crash Systems (PCSs) use an environment sensor to improve the effectiveness of reversible passive safety restraints by activating them before a collision occurs. Obviously, a PCS should meet very high safety and reliability requirements. A PCS must therefore be thoroughly tested for a wide range of (near-)collision scenarios. This paper presents a new method for the validation of a PCS using Vehicle Hardware-In-the-Loop (VEHIL) experiments. The VEHIL laboratory enables collision-free testing of a PCS-equipped vehicle in a Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) environment, where only the relative motion between host and target vehicle is reproduced. With accurate and repeatable VEHIL experiments the validation of a PCS is carried out safer, cheaper and more efficient. The added value of VEHIL is demonstrated with a prototype PCS. This system uses a radar system to detect a pre-crash situation and a reversible belt retractor to bring the occupant in an optimal position for the crash.