Development of Fast Side-impact Sensing Algorithm

고속 측면 충돌 감지 알고리즘의 개발

Accident statistics shows that the portion of fatal occupant injuries due to side impacts is considerably high. The side impact usually leads to a severe intrusion of side structure into the passenger compartment. Furthermore, the safety zone for the side impact is relatively small compared to the front impact. Those kinds of physics for side impact frequently result in a fatal injury for the occupant. Therefore, NHTSA and EEVC are trying to intensify the regulation for the occupant protection against side impact. Both the regulation and recent market trends are asking for an installation of side airbag. There are several types of system configuration for side impact sensing. In this paper, we adopt the acceleration-based remote sensing method for the side airbag control system. We mainly focus on the development of hardware and crash discrimination algorithm of remote sensing unit. The crash discrimination algorithm needs fast decision of airbag firing especially for high-speed side impact such as FMVSS 214 and EEVC tests. It is also required to distinguish between low-speed fire and no-fire events. The algorithm should have a sufficient safety margin against any misuse situation such as hammer blow, door slam, etc. This paper introduces several firing criteria such as acceleration. velocity and energy criteria that use physical value proportional to crash severity. We have made a simulation program by using Matlab/Simulink to implement the proposed algorithm. We have conducted an algorithm calibration by using real crash data for 2,500cc vehicle. The crash performance obtained by the simulation was verified through a pulse injection method. It turned out that the results satisfied the system requirements well.