On the potential of accelerating an electrified lead vehicle to mitigate rear-end collisions

This paper analyzes the potential safety benefit from autonomous acceleration of an electrified lead vehicle to mitigate or prevent being struck from behind. Safety benefit was estimated based on the expected reduction in relative velocity at impact in combination with injury risk curves. Potential issues and safety concerns with the operation and implementation of such a system in the real world are discussed from an engineering and human factors stand point. In particular, the effect of the pre-collision acceleration in reducing whiplash injury risk due to change in head posture and reduction of crash severity is also discussed. In general, this study found that autonomously accelerating an electrified lead vehicle can mitigate and prevent rear-end collisions and significantly increase the safety benefits from existing systems such as autonomous emergency braking.