Can active safety
be used to lightweight?

Alex Pawlowski

slides.com/alexpawlowski/active-safety-lightweighting-review

CE 595: Intelligent Transportation Systems

1 October 2015

A Focus on ITS Technologies

problem background

Passive safety includes technologies
that increase the survivability of the
occupants when in a crash
Active safety includes technologies
that reduce the likelihood and/or
severity of a crash
- Various levels:
  - hazard mitigation
  - hazard detection
  - hazard avoidance
If active safety can reduce accidents, do we need as much passive safety elements?
- Corollary: Could vehicle fuel economy
  increase with reduction of passive
  safety elements?

Passive Safety
- With improved crash structures across the vehicle fleet, all but the smallest vehicles have no statistically significant decrease in crash worthiness from weight reduction
Active Safety
- Electronic Safety Control (mandatory by 2017) will reduce the fraction of fatalities in rollovers and crashes, shifting accident risk in light trucks

Infrastructure
- Automated camera-based detection system to warn drivers of oncoming traffic with road-side VMS could reduce a risk of a crash by nearly 30%

Literature in reducing the risk of incidents from active safety systems is separate from research into increasing occupant survivability
- this paper looks to tie those together from the perspective of ITS
Vehicle weight gain from passive safety elements is not as well quantified or placed in one review

Focus of paper has to be on ITS technologies to understand active safety's potential
- Jun commented that an Advanced Warning System could be looked at for light / small vehicle to address enhanced accident severity
- Discussion with Andreas Malikopolous Friday on connected vehicle technologies
- Conversation with IIHS