Abstract:

This paper predicts new issues of vehicle collision accidents in the environment of future intelligent traffic, and reviews the trend of smart occupant protection driven by the development of future traffic technology.In the future, connected vehicles and autonomous driving technologies will reduce occurrence rate of motor vehicle collision accidents. In vehicle platoon with high-speed and small following distance, if any small probability incident triggers an accident, large number of severe injuries will result in multiple-vehicle collisions at high-speed. On the positive aspect, future intelligent transportation technologies will achieve more reliable pre-crash sensing. Accurate information of occupant status and pre-crash warning will enable development of smart occupant restraint system that can provide tailored protection for occupants with different sitting postures, statures and biomechanical characteristics, as well as different crash modes and crash severities. Referencing the concept of uniform restraint, current restraint system may be optimized, and new restraint modes may be envisioned and developed for protections from high-speed crash. Such a restraint system will be adaptive and tunable to different situations, and it will only be applied on occupant body when needed, offering safety function without sacrificing comfort and convenience.

Key words: future traffic/ intelligent transportation technologies/ , vehicle safety/ occupant protection/ restraint system/ smart control