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The increasing variety of test configurations and requirements has leaded to carry out activities of greater complexity. These advanced crash tests usually involve vehicle trajectories which are not straight and cannot be performed with the usual testing system. In order to increase the testing capabilities, a new guiding system was developed. An in-loop processing of the images filmed by a camera enables the vehicle to follow a path marked on the floor. An algorithm for image processing through colour filters was developed to identify the position of the line marked on the floor. Based on this input the steering wheel is rotated by an electric motor which receives the input of the electronic software. After a first phase of development, the system was able to identify the marked line on the floor and control the angle of the steering wheel to maintain the desired trajectory. However, the robustness should be increased.

New active and passive safety systems are continuously being developed. To assess these new systems, new testing requirements have appeared along with constraints and requirements that must be overcome while at the same time maintaining higher safety and quality standards. However, the increasing variety of test configurations and the requirements of various customers have led passive safety laboratories to carry out more complex vehicle tests, which usually involve non-straight trajectories and cannot be performed with the usual testing system. In order to increase the testing capabilities, a new guiding system was developed to satisfy the above-mentioned requirements. Several requirements for the desired system were established. It had to be reliable, robust and solid in order to guarantee repeatability and durability in crashes. Additionally the system had to be installed inside the vehicle without modifying its structure or interfering with the mass distribution.

According to the “Report 2010” of the Association des Constructeurs Européens de Motocycles (European motorcycle manufacturers' association), the number of motorcycles throughout the European Union rose from 16 million to more than 22 million between 2001 and 2008. Taking all two-wheeled motor vehicles into account, in 2008 approximately 33 million vehicles were registered. At the same time, motorcycles are by far the most dangerous means of transport. Two groups (children and elderly people) are especially vulnerable due to their weakness against impact, reflexes and reaction to risk, resistance to the generated forces, etc. According to the latest accidents data from the European Community database on road accidents (CARE), more than 110 children under 14 years old who were passengers on PTW's were killed on the roads of the Community between 1991 and 2000.

The eNOTIFY project defined an algorithm which allows the vehicle to recognize when an accident has occurred and what kind of accident has taken place (frontal, side, roll-over or rear-end collision). The innovative aspects of this methodology are basically that, for each type of accident and for each class of vehicle, a maximum and minimum level of vehicle accelerations (linear or angular) are defined for the severe accident, slight accident and no accident scenarios. A direct application of this algorithm could be to include it in an on-board unit on vehicles, and use it in emergency call applications. eCall devices have been developed to automatically notify emergency services in the event of an accident, in which a fast and efficient rescue operation can significantly increase the chances of survival of the severely injured. In order to reduce response time and improve the efficiency of the medical and technical services, fast and accurate accident identification is required.

The simulation of the vehicle impact against deformable barriers has been commonly used for the design of vehicle bodies for a number of years. However, the use of similar procedures to study side impacts against road barriers is innovative and presents new challenges. The main technological challenge of simulating vehicle impacts against road barriers is based on an accurate characterization of barrier elements and materials such as the locking of the barrier with the ground, the deformation of the materials at high impact speeds, fracture modelling, correct definition of parameters such as friction between the elements that impact with the barrier, or characterization of elements embedded in the concrete such as the fibres. An essential part of the work is the realization of both characterization tests as well as real-scale tests, in order to validate the results obtained in the simulations.

Worldwide, 1.2 million people die in road crashes yearly; 43,000 in Europe alone. This implies a cost to European society of approximately 160 billion euros, and takes up 10% of all healthcare resources. To reduce these rates, safety technologies have been developed which help to minimize the severity of injuries to vehicle occupants. However, studies have shown that most deaths due to road accidents occur in the time between the accident and the arrival of medical care. Therefore, a fast and efficient rescue operation would significantly increase the injured person's probability of survival. The aim of this project was to define the On-Board Unit (OBU) hardware and software installed in all modern vehicles which could request medical and technical support after a road accident. This device, based on the information from the vehicle sensors, automatically decides whether the car has suffered a road accident or not, the severity of the accident and the kind of accident (impact area).