Accident Simulation

Vehicles with automated driving functions have to achieve at least the level of driving skills of an attentive human driver. Measures to guarantee the required level of functional safety are needed all throughout the development process and especially the life cycle of automated vehicles and their electronic components. The main objective in SePIA is to develop a complex validation platform for electronic subsystems and the overall vehicle. This will be achieved by using real scenarios with extensive accident data, information from accident reconstruction reports as well as vehicle data and video recordings. The platform will be tested and demonstrated in a hardware/software application environment.

• Project website

Crash test programs require suggestions for unsafe collision constellations. In order to generate more safety even in previously untested zones and collision constellations, there is a need for the scientifically based identification and definition of weak points in the passive safety of current passenger car models.

A basis is provided by Energy Equivalent Speed (EES) models, which are of particular importance for the future development of passive and active vehicle safety systems. For example, it has not yet been possible to prospectively determine the benefit (in the sense of reducing the severity of injuries) of safety systems in real accidents if the systems to be evaluated merely change the accident constellation (e. g. by braking and/or steering system interventions) or if modifications are made to the crash structure. The approach of combining crash test and real accident data is new, as it combines for the first time precise data from standardized tests with the wide-range information from real accidents. In addition, a novel impact calculation method based on the EES models is being developed, which can calculate the EES of a collision, for instance. With so-called injury risk functions, EES values can be used to assess the injury risk for occupants. This closes a gap in the previous process chains for the future evaluation of safety systems.

This project is funded by the ADAC Foundation.

The Energy Equivalent Speed (EES) is considered an important parameter in the reconstruction of traffic accidents. It is also important in traffic accident research as an equivalent to plastic deformation energy. Previous methods for EES estimation are often subject to a subjective influence. However, the platform developed by Fraunhofer IVI is to be applied equally in traffic accident reconstruction as well as in traffic accident research in order to obtain objective estimates for the EES value of a deformed passenger car. The estimates are based on so-called EES models, which have already been developed in previous projects from real accident data (GIDAS, NASS CDS) and crash test data (Euro NCAP).

The platform for objective EES estimation will be accessible to different users after a short registration process. For more information, please refer to the project website.

The project is funded by ADAC.

project website

How can simulation files that comply with the new openPASS standard be generated from PCM data? The Fraunhofer IVI investigated this question in the »Feasibility Study for X2openPASS« in 2017, which showed that a partially automated transfer of PCM data to openPASS with enrichment of the PCM information by OpenStreetMaps data is considered the most effective way of data conversion.

In the X2openPASS follow-up projects, a tool is now being developed with which this data can be referenced and corrected and the two simulation files can be created and also corrected for each individual case. The tool chain allows the import of different information sources, such as the PCM and GIDAS databases, (navigation) map data or aerial photographs. X2openPASS combines all information and checks the quality of the mapping of the environment and the accident.

In the future, the »DEKRA Lausitzring« test field will be used not only to carry out currently standardized vehicle tests but also to conduct new types of tests on current and future driver assistance systems and highly automated systems. To plan the shape and characteristics of the test field, real traffic accidents and critical situations (near misses) are to be considered. This investigation should essentially answer the question of how the road infrastructure of the test field must be designed in order to cover representative accident scenarios and/or critical traffic scenarios. Furthermore, this study is intended to accompany the planning process on the accident research side and to identify future possibilities and shortcomings.

Within the project »UsTra – Accident Scenario Related Test Tracks«, a detailed accident data analysis as well as a road network analysis will be carried out.