Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OSCCAR (Future Occupant Safety for Crashes in Cars)

Teaser

The future highly automated vehicle, with comfort and convenience enhancing features such as relaxed seating positions and rotated seats, will require the development of more advanced and novel restraint systems. By partnering with vehicle manufacturers, technical universities...

Summary

The future highly automated vehicle, with comfort and convenience enhancing features such as relaxed seating positions and rotated seats, will require the development of more advanced and novel restraint systems. By partnering with vehicle manufacturers, technical universities and OEMs in the research project OSCCAR (Future Occupant Safety for Crashes in Cars), the use of a comprehensive integrated approach for the development of future advanced occupant protection systems can be guaranteed. Guiding principles and concepts for occupant protection will be developed and assessed by using harmonized human body models (HBM) for complex test cases and with consideration of heterogeneity characteristics like gender, age and other demographic factors, allowing for a dedicated and individual increase in safety for the occupant population.
The EU Horizon 2020 Programme funded research project “OSCCAR:” unites 21 international partners, who collectively investigate on a novel simulation-based approach to safeguard occupants in traffic accidents Virtual human body models will support the traditionally used crash test dummies with the assessment and homologation of future vehicles using computer simulation.
OSCCAR project runs on for another year and a half. During this time, amongst others, the feasibility of virtual assessment methods for future vehicle occupant safety needs will be demonstrated and relevant research for improved future occupant safety will be provided.

Work performed

OSCCAR project has managed to be internationally recognized and known for important research on the highly relevant future vehicle occupant safety topics, mainly through the dissemination efforts by OSCCAR partners. This was supported by several internal and external workshopsas well as scientific publications, conference speeches, magazine articles, a webpage etc.
On work package level significant progress was achieved during the first 18 months.
A methodology to predict future crash configurations based on accident data and pre-crash simulation was developed and applied. The outcome is a description of the accidents that are expected to persist with the onset and market penetration of automated driving.
In further activities beyond the original scope, partners developed a methodology to estimate generic crash pulses for novel configurations.
A test case matrix was developed for structuring work when defining and motivating test cases, which are to be used e.g. for investigating protection principles, and for demonstrating the whole tool chain evaluation.
Passenger protection principles for further investigation were concepted, as was the buildup of respective generic interior models. Five working groups have been established to work on the protection principles.
A first physical sled test series was performed in order to gain data for the validation of the respective simulation models and to demonstrate the functionality of selected protection principles.
On the HBM side, material models have been developed and implemented, organ dimensions have been provided, new HBMs body parts have been developed while other HBMs have been further refined and morphing activity started. Standardized validation data has been selected and made available along with models of the important validation data environments.
On the level of integrated and comparable assessment, criteria were defined and agreed on which allow for comparable simulation results. Furthermore, a sitting procedure and a suitable software tool for HBMs is being developed. For assessing the occupant simulations, an open source software tool was enhanced in order to work with input from different solvers used within OSCCAR.
Virtual testing and assessment procedures have been reviewed, a first proposal of a procedure for validation has been drafted and published, and details on a Homologation test case derived.

Final results

OSCCAR project aims to make a substantial contribution to future overall road safety. An integrated approach to enhance the personal safety for all occupants involved in future vehicle accidents will be delivered in the following areas:
Understanding future accident scenarios involving passenger cars
OSCCAR develops a prospective methodology to predict remaining crash configurations based on filtering accident data and applying pre-crash simulation. With the onset and market penetration of automated driving, persisting accidents are to be expected. OSCCAR will therefor develop comprehensive descriptions of these accidents. To make safety impact assessment tools available for use, OSCCAR will also contribute to open-source tools (openPASS).
Demonstration of new advanced occupant protection principles and concepts
OSCCAR project will demonstrate advanced protection principles for future occupant protection that can be applied for conventional vehicles and highly automated vehicles building on the advantage of advanced HBMs that can provide diverse, omnidirectional, biofidelic, active and robust HBMs
OSCCAR project will enhance and update Human Body Models (HBM). These HBM will be used within the project across work packages to show the overall impact on the demonstrators and to develop future restraints. Selective and relevant model improvements will hereby be delivered, a validation catalogue for active HBM validation will be provided as well as work on harmonized injury criteria presented.
Establishment of an integrated, virtual assessment framework
OSCCAR project will lay the base for virtual assessment of advanced protection systems for conventional vehicles and HAVs and pave the way for virtual homologation of future sitting positions for HAVs. Within the project a procedure for using and especially assessing HBMs in a harmonized way will be developed. Through the detailed presentation of several selected demonstrators the applicability/usefulness of the developed virtual assessment framework for future safety systems will be shown.
Contribution to the standardization of virtual testing procedures
The contributions from OSCCAR project to the standardization of virtual testing procedures will build the basis for the development of procedures and standards in this field.
There will be a publicly available description of best-practice procedures including limitations that allow legislative and consumer rating organisations to decide on reasonable set-ups of virtual testing. It will also allow OEMs and restraint system developers to focus their concept developments.
Moreover, OSCCAR will provide advanced knowledge on virtual testing opportunities & possible implications for regulation & consumer ratings (e.g. Euro NCAP)
Development of an exploitation strategy towards large scale implementation of virtual testing methods
OSCCAR project will disseminate easily understandable results to stakeholders in industry, suppliers and government in order to accelerate the implementation of the research findings. The project findings will be promoted through presentations at project workshops, technical conferences, scientific publications and the project website The OSCCAR exploitation strategy will support to facilitate technology transfer and accelerate dissemination of the on-going project activities. OSCCAR also aims to achieve an optimum knowledge management including appropriate handling of IPR, implementation and exploitation of the obtained results.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.osccarproject.eu.