Feasibility of an anticipatory noncontact precrash restraint actuation system

The problem of providing an electronic warning of an impending crash to a precrash restraint system a fraction of a second before physical contact differs from more widely explored problems, such as providing several seconds of crash warning to a driver. One approach to precrash restraint sensing is to apply anticipatory system theory. This consists of nested simplified models of the system to be controlled and of the system's environment. It requires sensory information to describe the `current state' of the system and the environment. The models use the sensor data to make a faster-than-real-time prediction about the near future. Anticipation theory is well founded but rarely used. A major problem is to extract real-time current-state information from inexpensive sensors. Providing current-state information to the nested models is the weakest element of the system. Therefore, sensors and real-time processing of sensor signals command the most attention in an assessment of system feasibility. This paper describes problem definition, potential `showstoppers,' and ways to overcome them. It includes experiments showing that inexpensive radar is a practical sensing element. It considers fast and inexpensive algorithms to extract information from sensor data.