Event

Traffic accidents are not inevitable

Erik Coelingh, Volvo Car Corporation and Division of Automatic Control, Automation and Mechatronics, will hold his Docent Lecture and Promotion Lecture for Adjunct Professor in Mechatronics.

Abstract

Division of Automation, Automatic Control and Mechatronic Automakers are increasingly focusing their safety efforts to the area of active safety. Traditionally the efforts were focused on protecting vehicle occupants and vulnerable road users (VRU's) in case of an accidents, so-called passive safety, but nowadays automakers try to help drivers in avoiding the accident from occurring in the first place. For this, automakers develop technologies that can detect hazardous traffic situations and actively assist road users in avoiding or mitigating accidents. From traffic accident analysis it is well known that human error almost always plays a role in the causation of accidents. A simple mistake can have severe consequences. Active safety technologies will help and support the driver to avoid these mistakes or take care of the consequences.

This presentation will explain how automatic emergency braking (AEB) can be used for addressing specific accident types. Through the development of more advanced threat assessment and decision making algorithms the effectiveness of AEB system has continuously improved in the last decade. AEB systems are able to brake harder and start their automatic braking at a larger time-to-collision. Both effects allow for higher speed reductions prior to the accident and this will significantly decrease the risk for injuries. Moreover, early AEB systems could only address rear-end accidents with moving vehicles, but recent advances allow for automatic braking in collisions with stationary vehicles and pedestrians as well. In the near future, intersection accidents will be in scope and automatic steering will be used for helping the driver to avoid an accident completely.

The revolution of active safety has just started and further research will change road transportation such that we do not have to accept daily traffic accidents anymore.