New Euro NCAP star rating system for vehicles with ADAS features in the framework of MULTI-MOBY project

A few years ago Euro NCAP created the five-star safety rating system to help consumers and businesses compare vehicles more easily. In fact, the number of stars is a fair and transparent picture of how safe a car really is. However, a car can meet the minimum legal demands and it is not eligible for any stars. This does not mean that this car is necessarily unsafe, but it is not as safe as its competitors. 

Within what is evaluated, Euro NCAP bases its assessment on four important areas:

  • Adult Occupant Protection (driver and passenger);
  • Child Occupant Protection:
  • Vulnerable Road Users protection; and
  • Safety Assist, which evaluates driver-assistance and crash-avoidance technologies.

In this last area is where the University of Surrey, in collaboration with CIDAUT and IFEVS, have developed a simulation model which permits the emulation of the advance driver-assistance systems performance. Specifically, it is able to reproduce the performance of the ADAS features that intervene when a car-to-car rear-end crash takes place.

To avoid such crashes, one type of ADAS in the market presently is the collision avoidance system (CAS), which is design to prevent or reduce the severity of the collision. CAS can be further divided into two categories – Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) and Forward Collision Warning (FCW). The simulation model developed within the framework of Multi-Moby project is able to emulate the workings of these two systems and to predict the consequences of different accident scenarios. Additionally, the model can reproduce all the case that Euro NCAP takes account in determining the Safety Assist score.

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union project MULTI-MOBY (GA# 101006953)

The right material in the right position

CIDAUT, together with the partners of Salient Project, is tackling the new challenges of the forthcoming connected and automated vehicles’ crashworthiness. The new skills of the connected and automated vehicles will allow to significantly reduce the number of accidents and fatalities in our roads, but the zero crashes scenario is still far away. In the meanwhile, the communication among vehicles, V2V technology, will be a useful tool to have some pieces of important information some milliseconds in advance of the crash event.

This information will allow the absorption elements of the vehicle to give an active response to the impact they are about to suffer. But to obtain this active response, a deep research and development work is needed in order to select the right material and the optimum geometry for each of the components that shape the structure of the vehicle.       

At the same time, the project aims to find a sustainable solution, and attending to this is looking for recyclable light materials, as composite, aluminum or the combination of both, taking into account the whole life cycle analysis of the components and looking for circular economy compliant solutions. In order to select the most suitable material a detailed characterization campaign of different grades of composite and aluminum is being performed to know their static, dynamic, cyclic, fatigue, thermal and impact properties, which will conduct to obtaining accurate material cards to be implemented in advances software tools that will allow to optimize the geometry of the different components involved in the passive safety behavior of the automated vehicles and also to use the right material in the right position.

The research leading to this results has received funding from Horizon Europe under Grant Agreement nº 101069600

The First INTEGRA Young Researcher Competition just opened

The F. CIDAUT participates together with 3 other technology centers (CTAG, ITENE, I2CAT) in the INTEGRA Network. This Network is financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the CDTI, thought the Cervera Technological Centers program (00140188CER-20211031)

Its creation constitutes a step towards the development of local autonomous transport, which tries to optimize the movements of passengers and goods, guaranteeing the safety of users and minimizing the environmental cost.

The INTEGRA network has just launched the “I Young Researcher Competition”, with the objective to find innovative technical solutions that contribute to achieving ultra-safe autonomous and connected driving in complex urban environments.

The competition is mainly aimed at University students around the world and University graduates who have finished their studies in the last 2 years.

The prize will be unique and will consist of the publication of a scientific article with the collaboration of the INTEGRA Network. The finalists, for their part, will receive a diploma accrediting their condition.

Those interested in participating in the Competition must fill out a participation application that will include the proposal or idea in accordance with the requirements established in the Competition rules document. For more information you could visit our LinkedIn: REDINTEGRA or visit our page web: www.cidaut.es

The deadline for submission will be June 30, 2023

Send your ideas to: candidaturas@integraconcursoideas.es

CIDAUT tackles the passive safety challenges posed by the automated driving

Step by step automated driving is becoming present in our daily driving. Some years ago, some vehicles were able to maintain the selected speed or to inform us about our position in the lane, later they increased their intelligence braking when they found an obstacle in front or steering to stay in the center of the lane. Self-parking is nowadays a reality for some models, as it is the traffic-jam chauffeur. This upscaling of the vehicles’ skills is addressing us to growing levels of automation. Nowadays level 2 vehicles are a reality in the road and level 3 are starting to be sold, and together with the conditional and high automation level, the driver of the vehicle will be allowed to make different activities while the system controls the vehicle.

These activities will be linked to new positions in the vehicle, mainly it is foreseen that the seats will move backwards, the seatbacks will be more reclined and the steering wheel will be warded off in the cockpit. Attending to this new scenario, the conventional restrain systems will totally lose their performance. The seat belt, fixed to the B-pillar will be very far from the occupant shoulder, so it will be impossible to stop the chest in the event of a crash. Similarly, the steering wheel airbag will be away from the driver, so the pressure inside the bag will not be the suitable one when the body impacts the air-bag and the head will impact both the steering wheel and the cockpit.

To tackle these new scenarios, CIDAUT, together with three reference research and development centers, CTAG, ITENE and i2CAT, is developing new passive safety solutions in the frame of Integra project. The new solutions are related to the integration of the seat belt in the seat, in order to maintain the relative position between the occupant’s body and the restraint device, and also innovative solutions of smart airbags are involved with adaptive working parameters attending to the kind of impact and the position of the passengers inside the vehicle.

In parallel, and in order to inform the adaptive airbag solutions, CIDAUT is developing an innovative artificial vision devise based on a single camera to understand the occupants’ position and the main biomechanics characteristics. Additionally, the system integrates artificial intelligence algorithms that monitors the driver and are able to decide if it is in good condition to take over the control of the vehicle. 

Acknowledgment

The work driving to these results is been performed in INTEGRA project, funded by and CDTI through Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación in the frame of the funding for Excellence in Research Centers “Cervera”. CER – 2021 1031.      

CIDAUT is present at TRA Lisbon to show the safe low footprint vehicles developed in Avangard project

IFEVS is the Italian company designing smart electric urban vehicles with four main characteristics, affordability, all made in Europe, modularity and safety. The aim to obtain affordable solutions has addressed to the design of high strength steel tubular frames for different vehicle configurations. The technology is so flexible that can be applied to the frame of a bicycle and also to the frame of a van. For the last ten years, CIDAUT as specialist in crash worthiness, has established a strong collaboration with IFEVS to make these smart vehicles as safe as possible, being able to comply not only with the Regulation applicable to M1 vehicles but also with the more restrictive Euro NCAP protocols. 

In TRA Lisbon, IFEVS presented the four wheels vehicle and also different configurations of the e-bike. In the case of the e-bikes the two and three wheels versions were available for testing. The vehicles received very good comments after testing mainly related to the high comfort, the easiness to ride and the progressivity of the electric boost.

Besides the positive feed-back of the tester, it is important to highlight that thanks to the modular design of the frame, its manufacturing cost is lower than the ones coming from Asian countries and also easy to manufacture in a low investment assembly line, with the competitive advantage that the design and the components are made in Europe, with innovative solutions for the energy storage system.

Acknowledgment

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union (EU) project Avangard (GA #869986)

Active and passive solutions joint to respond smartly to crash events.

In the frame of Salient, Horizon Europe Project, Cidaut together with eleven partners will search for an innovative solution of the vehicle structure in the event of a crash. The front end structure of the vehicle will be equipped with intelligent sensors, whose first mission will be to advise the ADAS of the vehicle to avoid the impact, and in case this is not possible, the second mission will be to inform the structure of the vehicle about the kind of impact, the direction and the speed. According to this information, the solution developed in the project will modify the behavior of the component in charge of the energy absorption in order to optimize its behavior.

To achieve this innovative result, the consortium will develop new materials, based on advanced composites, aluminium or hybrid combinations on both. The project covers all the steps from the material characterization to the final validation test, where Cidaut will use its facilities to perform the real crashes that will demonstrate and validate the effectiveness of the solution.

Salient is a 36 months project that started on September 2022. CTAG, as project coordinator, hosted the kick off meeting at the headquarters in O Porriño. The twelve partners were present in the meeting enjoying the opportunity to celebrate face to face meetings, and taking advantage of the occasion to fix the next steps and milestones of the project.

The research leading to these results has received funding from Horizon Europe Programme under grant agreement nº101069600.