Development of Equipment to Evaluate Pre-Collision Systems for Pedestrians

Pre-Collision Systems (PCS) for avoidance/mitigation of pedestrian crashes have begun to be equipped on certain high-end passenger vehicles. At present, there is no common evaluation standard to evaluate and compare the performances of different PCS for pedestrian collision avoidance. The Transportation Active Safety Institute (TASI) at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis has been studying the establishment of such an evaluation standard with the support from Toyota Motor Corporation. To create a test environment for conducting PCS tests with pedestrians, common relative motion patterns of pedestrians and vehicles before crashes were identified. These motion patterns further define the requirements of the test equipment for PCS testing. The mannequin manipulation equipment was designed to provide sufficient motion range so that the mannequin motion can replicate pedestrian walking and running at the representative speeds. Various mannequin manipulation structures were considered and evaluated to ensure the safety and portability of the equipment and to minimize PCS sensing interference. Due to the potentially short intersection time period between the mannequin and vehicle in most test scenarios, the motions of the vehicle and the mannequin need to be precisely coordinated by a computer and must be based on sensor triggers. The final PCS test equipment design consists of a central computer, a mannequin with moving limbs, a crane system that can move the mannequin across or along the road, and infrared based start/stop sensors. Accurate data recording and the synchronization of mannequin motion and vehicle motion are based on the atomic clock in the Global Positioning System (GPS). This paper describes the design and development of the equipment for coordinating the relative motion of the mannequin and the test vehicle.